


C'était salement romantique

by Tokyo_the_Glaive



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Force Bond (Star Wars), Jedi Finn, M/M, Medical Procedures, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Past Torture, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Space Idiots In Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-18 10:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8158429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tokyo_the_Glaive/pseuds/Tokyo_the_Glaive
Summary: After the destruction of Starkiller, Poe returns to D'Qar to find that Finn was grievously injured in a fight against Kylo Ren. He himself is still reeling from his time aboard the Finalizer. They latch onto each other as they try to recover.(Or, the one where Finn has the Force, Poe fell in love the moment Finn removed his helmet, and they're both terrified of what comes next.)This was originally written for the (now-cancelled) Stormpilot Big Bang 2016.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to cinnaatheart, who did a very thorough beta-read of this fic; it might have never seen the light of day otherwise. Also thanks to amidtheflowers, without whom I would not be a writer.

D’Qar’s airspace was too quiet when Poe arrived, hands shaking and skin twitching under the fabric of his flightsuit.The peaceful, still atmosphere didn’t fit his mood at all, but he wasn’t concerned; it would pass.He was one of the first to arrive, that was all.They would be celebrating soon enough.

Starkiller Base, the bastion and forefront of First Order weapons technology, was now a sun on the edge of the Unknown.The threat that it had posed—the damage it had done—it was all over, at least for now.

As Poe climbed out of his X-wing, he could hardly believe it.He felt like he ought to do something other than stand there, shaking out his sweaty hair after removing his helmet, but there was nothing—no mission, no objective.His eyes tracked the remaining X-wing fighters as they came in and landed beside his own craft.Snap was there, as were Jess and Bastian and a slew of others—almost everyone from Blue squadron, and a few from Red.People flooded the tarmac, whooping and cheering, and soon enough, the Falcon appeared high in the horizon.Solo had returned.

Except.

Poe took it in as if he were outside of his own body.He knew General Organa approached from behind him, her face grim as she left the base; he knew they’d lost many, many pilots, some of them friends of his.

The ramp to the Falcon went down. _Except_.Poe ran, a medic tank coming up beside him. _Except._ They knew something he didn’t.Poe felt his head spinning.There was the girl—Rey, Finn had said her name was Rey—and Chewie, and there was…

 _Finn_.His Finn. Unconscious, unresponsive, unmoving.

Solo was nowhere to be seen.

“Easy, easy,” one of the medics close to Poe said, easing Finn onto a stretcher to take him inside, no doubt to the medbay.(Poe hoped it was the medbay, it had to be just the medbay, it had to be— “He’s hurt, but we’ve got a heartbeat.”

Relief crossed Rey’s face. Evidently she had feared the worst, too.General Organa went to meet her, and Poe went with the medics.His own retinue of fighters swarmed around him, curious and questioning, but he couldn’t talk to them, not now.His head swam, and the medic tank got away from him.Maybe it was just the sun, or the heat, or the pressure, but….What had happened on Starkiller? What had happened to Finn? Where were they taking him, what—

“Dameron?” Jess asked, eyes wide, suddenly beside him.“Dameron, woah, hey, guys, he’s not—”

Poe sank to his knees, the ground rushing up to meet his face.

* * *

Red.

There was red and white and black.Silver on red and black, white on black on white on black on white on black.

Something buzzed, droning.Something else pulsed erratically before leveling out, evening.

The white faded out of the black and left nothing in its place but void.

* * *

In the medbay, the two medics, Allessr and Mikkup, stared apprehensively at Finn as he— _finally,_ thank the Force—stabilized. (It was an expression the Resistance had adopted as their own. It commemorated General Organa more than the Force itself, really; the only force most of the fighters knew was the General, stalwart and unrelenting. She deserved their thanks most of all.)

Stabilizing Finn was one thing; getting him settled and treated was something else entirely.The Resistance had grown out of the New Republic, and resources had by and large come from sympathetic figures on the inside who still remembered what General Organa had done for the galaxy.But with Hosnian Prime gone, could they really afford to channel so much into an ex-stormtrooper?

“Just do it, Allessr,” Mikkup said, noting the hesitation of the other.“General’s orders.”

No questioning that.

“Hey, we need a medic here!”

They turned to see one of the pilots—Jessika Pava—dragging another—Poe Dameron—into the medbay.

“He just collapsed on the runway trying to keep up with him,” Pava said, holding Poe and gesturing at Finn.Others joined her in the doorway.“He needs help. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

The medics glanced at each other. Not enough supplies, not enough—

“You do diagnostics on him,” Allessr said, gesturing at Poe.“I’ll handle this one.”

“Right,” Mikkup said, coming to Poe’s bedside. He looked pale and sweaty, but otherwise healthy.Heatstroke?Panic attack?Some injury that hadn’t made itself visible yet?

Two more joined the already-crowded medbay: General Organa and another woman, younger—Rey, though the medics didn’t know her name.

“Dameron,” General Organa said.She looked at Mikkup as he ran a sensor over Poe’s face.“What’s wrong with him?”

“We haven’t determined yet, General,” Mikkup said, looking down at Poe. Nothing yet.“We’ll be sure to contact you know when we have something.”

The General’s eyes were wide with—fury? Rage? Sadness?

“Very well,” she said.“Everyone else out, there are other injured that need to be brought in.”

More injured. Not enough supplies.

At Finn’s side, the younger woman stood, unmoving. Sadness wrote itself across her features. Allessr was too worried about what would happen when they eventually ran out of supplies taking care of Finn to have too much in the way of sympathy for her or her friend.

“Come,” the General said, pulling her away.“He’ll pull through.”

Neither Mikkup nor Allessr were so sure, but they weren’t about to say so much.Slowly, the medbay cleared.There were fewer injured than expected, even considering that most injuries in space battles resulted in fatalities.Nothing much to be done about those.

Poe’s bed was placed beside Finn’s following an examination that revealed nothing of his ailment.Allessr monitored the pair of them while Mikkup checked on their supplies.

Not enough.It had never been enough, but now…

Allessr stared at Finn.So many resources, all for one person.Resigned and too tired to be afraid for the Resistance patients that would come later who wouldn’t have access to the same sort of prosthesis and medical treatments, they got to work.

* * *

Poe woke screaming.

His head throbbed and all he could see was that black and silver mask. It had felt as if someone had drilled in through his eyes and dragged out his brain, as if someone had dug in under his skin and slid razor blades around in some sick game—

Someone was speaking, but Poe couldn’t make heads or tails of what was going on.He needed to get away, get far away, find BB-8, tell the Resistance…

Something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. White clothes. _Finn_. Half delirious, Poe wondered why Finn was back in his stormtrooper armor, then realized that he wasn’t—those were linens, this was a medbay. Above Poe, Allessr and Mikkup looked terrified as they tried to hold him down. He was thrashing, fighting—why? Kylo Ren wasn’t here. It had been a nightmare. A bad dream based in memory. It was over.

Poe forced himself to go boneless. His eyes refused to focus, and Finn remained a distant blur. He couldn’t tell if Finn’s chest was moving or not—this was a medbay, not a morgue, but he wanted to see his friend, needed to see the man who’d done what he himself had failed to do. His pulse spiked and his stomach heaved. Everything hurt, from his scalp down to his toenails. Poe burned and froze, and in his mind’s eye he could see that damned room with that _thing_ —

Something pinched his arm, and after a few long, torturous minutes, Poe relaxed and slumped in place. His vision swam and his eyes shut as his breathing evened out.

* * *

Finn heard screaming. He saw Ren, felt a ripping pain through him that cut through the void. The colors were gone, but what he saw was not his own. His awareness of it was altered, filtered.

He heard screaming and he saw the village burning on Jakku, except he was on the outskirts, not in the fray. He saw people who’d had the courage and the wherewithal to stand up to the First Order, albeit briefly, as they were gunned down in place.

He heard screaming and saw a little white and orange droid, beeping merrily.

Finn willed it to stop. Whoever was screaming, help him, help him, _help him…_

* * *

Mikkup and Allessr held Poe tightly until he relaxed entirely. Allessr still held the syringe and seemed transfixed on the object, uncomprehending of what had just happened. Mikkup spun away, furious.

“That was our last—” Mikkup sputtered.

“I wasn’t—”

“ _What did you do?_ ”

“I don’t know,” Allessr said, voice shaking. “I had to do it.”

“That was the last of the sedative!” Mikkup shouted. Allessr shook, grip tight on the syringe, and found they couldn’t say a word. Mikkup slumped. No amount of arguing was going to get that last dose of sedative back. “Go tell the General.”

* * *

Allessr, yellow in the face from running and shaking from tip to toe, crashed into the meeting of Resistance High Command. From the front of the holoprojector, General Organa straightened, prepared to deal with whomever or whatever had decided that their nonsense was more important than determining the next course of action with regards to preserving order and peace within the galaxy.

“General Organa,” Allessr said, “forgive me, I—”

“Allessr,” General Organa said, recognizing the intruder, “what’s happened?”

Allessr looked from side to side, nervous. “It’s the supplies, General,” Allessr babbled. “I don’t know what happened, one second Dameron was screaming and the next I had our last sedative—”

Other generals were murmuring, staring. Allessr stuttered and fell silent.

“What happened?” General Organa repeated.

“I don’t know,” Allessr admitted, “but we don’t have any more sedative, our supplies are depleted to nothing. We can keep the stormtrooper—”

“Finn,” a woman—the one who had been with General Organa earlier—said sharply, “his name is Finn.”

“Finn, yes, Finn,” Allessr said, eyes darting about. “We can afford to keep him alive— _barely_ —but only if we cut everyone else off. General, I accept full responsibility, I—”

General Organa pursed her lips. “This meeting is adjourned,” she said. All rose. “Allessr, medbay, now.”

Allessr had no choice but to comply. What else could one do in the face of an unstoppable force?

* * *

General Organa listened intently as Allessr and Mikkup explained what had happened.  Something had happened to Poe—a nightmare, most likely, or a flashback to whatever Ben had done to him aboard the _Finalizer_.

(General Organa knew full well what her son had done to Poe. Poe hadn’t wanted to tell her—he was a hothead through and through, full of pride and passion and too stubborn to let anyone see him sweat, much less someone he admired—but she’d read the report he’d given after returning. The visions he’d had, the torment he’d endured… It had given General Organa more than a moment’s pause. She could see Shara Bey’s face in her mind, stern and unyielding in matters concerning her son. Shara wasn’t around to see how _Leia_ —not General Organa, not then—how _Leia_ had failed her, how she had nearly broken her promise to keep Poe safe, and with her own son, no less.

 _Oh, Ben, why? Why did you disappear?_ But Ben couldn’t be completely gone. He wasn’t. She could bring him back, she could—)

“All of a sudden, it was as if I were no longer myself,” Allessr said, braver now that the rest of the officers of the Resistance were not watching every move. “I had this overwhelming urge—more so than usual, even given my profession—to help him. I had to make him stop screaming. It was my first priority.” Allessr’s head bowed. “Forgive me, General. It was the last we had.”

And with Hosnian Prime gone…

“How long will he be out?” General Organa asked, looking at Poe’s face. It looked peaceful, relaxed as it was under the influence of the sedative Allessr had administered.

“The dose was full,” Mikkup said, chiming up for the first time in a while. “Another few hours at best, but then he’ll be awake. We won’t be able to calm him again if he needs it.”

General Organa sighed and glanced at Finn. “And him?” she asked.

“We gave him something strong hours ago—pain relief, not sedative,” Mikkup said. “We’re not sure why he hasn’t woken yet.”

General Organa caught the underlying meaning as a stray thought, a prayer: neither Allessr nor Mikkup thought Finn worth the time or energy to save. His spine had suffered so much damage, it would use up the rest of their reserves and all of their prosthetic capability for the foreseeable future. They hoped, however grimly, that he did not wake so they could funnel the supplies elsewhere.

General Organa closed her eyes and listened through the Force. Poe’s thoughts were still, a calming river of purple behind her eyelids. It was unnatural, to be sure; General Organa had never seen him as anything other than red, burning bright and hot. To see him wrapped in that color had frightened her, once—he was red as Vader’s lightsaber and twice as dangerous because he was young and handsome and reckless. He didn’t need a guiding hand to do damage, and General Organa thanked the Force he had chosen to seek one—that he had sought out _her_. She hadn’t been able to save her son—she would, eventually, she had to—but she could save Poe from those fires all the same.

“When either of them wake,” General Organa said, speaking for the first time in a long time, aware that both medics stared at her with wide, terrified eyes, “alert me. No matter the circumstances.”

“Ma’am.”

“Yes, General.”

* * *

Purple.

There was a purple field and a purple house, purple mother and father and child. In the field stood a tree, and that tree was decidedly _not_ purple. It was durasteel and compassion and the soft fabric of a red and black cape, felt by accident; it was the clouds over Starkiller and the grit of the sand on Jakku and the rocks on Takodana and the heft of a lightsaber and light, light, light, light.

It was home.

* * *

Poe woke first.

Mikkup didn’t have to alert anyone; General Organa had decided to take up residence in the medbay, requisitioning one of the empty stretchers for her own use. She had her holopad propped in her lap and a permanent frown etched on her face. Mikkup had never seen her without either.

Others had tried to visit—Pava and Snap and Iolo, a handful of others who were looking for answers, for hope. Poe was a popular figure in the Resistance. Mikkup very much didn’t want to know what would happen if that idol fell.

At Poe’s first stirrings, General Organa rose to stand by his bedside. He was the first thing she saw when he opened his eyes.

“General,” he slurred.

“Poe Dameron,” she said. “Stay with me, now. Stay with me. That’s an order, commander.”

* * *

“That’s an order, commander.”

Poe heard General Organa’s words as if through water. He’d been having such a pleasant dream—he’d been home, on Yavin IV, but the sky had been violet, not blue, something that hadn’t bothered him in the dream. His mother and father had been there, at the tree Luke Skywalker had planted when he’d been a boy. It had been peaceful and calm, so unlike his dreams of late.

It was the first he’d slept and dreamed without waking in agony since escaping from the _Finalizer_.

“General,” he managed again, coming up. He tried to sit up, failed, and tried again. This time, he succeeded. “What happened?”

“You collapsed,” General Organa said, watching him carefully. Poe took her in, then saw the two medics. “They sedated you earlier so that you could rest.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“It wasn’t—” Allessr started.

“You are welcome,” Mikkup said. Allessr and Mikkup glared at each other. Poe looked back to General Organa, but not before his eyes caught on Finn, lying still and unmoving across the room.

Poe took in a deep breath and nearly choked on nothing.

“Is he alive?” Poe asked finally. “Is he—”

“We’re doing everything we can,” General Organa said. She visibly hesitated, but Poe knew better than to question his General. Later, he would uncover the truth. For now…

Poe swung himself out of the stretcher, sparing a look back at Finn, still unmoving.

“How are you feeling?” General Organa asked.

“Like I’ve been hit by a _Dissident_ ,” Poe said. “How long was I out?”

“No more than a few hours,” General Organa said. “Your friends have been looking for you.”

Poe rubbed the back of his head. His gaze shifted, no longer focused on anything in the room.

“Right,” he said. “I shouldn’t keep them waiting, then.” He hesitated, then looked at the medics, who were still standing off to one side near a corner as if they’d been scolded something fierce. “I am free to go, aren’t I?”

“Of course,” they said in tandem.

“It’s not like we—” Mikkup said, trailing off. The two medics looked away from Poe. Poe turned back to General Organa.

“Join your friends,” she said, “and get some rest without medication. We need you in top form.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Poe said, standing. His legs wobbled under him. He put on his best grin, hoping General Organa noticed that in place of his utter lack of balance, and made a hasty getaway.

* * *

The purple was briefly replaced by something pale—pink, maybe, bordering on red.

When it disappeared entirely, it felt cold, empty—to what, to who?

The void shivered, then went still.

* * *

Poe did not go to out to the tarmac to see if his friends were there, nor did he go to their shoddy makeshift bar, where their shelves—poorly stocked at the best of times—were sure to be nearly empty as Resistance fighters did what they could to drink themselves to oblivion in celebration.

No. Poe felt something under his skin as sure as he felt the ground under his feet. He bypassed all of that and headed outside, then kept walking. The base gave way to trees and vines and bushes, and only then did he stop, breathing deeply.

The atmosphere was all wrong—a little too heavy, a little too humid—but if he made a concerted effort to ignore those, he could imagine standing in the scattered woods amid the foothills of Yavin IV, near his old home. He sat down against the base of one of the trees—not a variety that grew back home, to be sure, but he’d never been so good at identifying trees—and pursed his lips. He counted as he breathed, seven in, seven out, just like his mother had taught him when he was small enough to fit in her lap, when she’d been there to hold him as they flew.

What a couple of days it had been.

Something sharp snapped in the corner of Poe’s mind. He shut his eyes, willing himself to keep breathing. It had happened several times since— _since_. He’d failed. If he hadn’t told them about BB-8, if he hadn’t—

“Hello?”

Poe’s head shot out, one hand reaching for a thigh blaster that wasn’t there. _Medbay_. They probably removed it. He couldn’t remember taking it off himself—

Poe recognized Rey as she emerged out of nowhere—or, from behind one of the trees, probably, but Poe’s heart was in his throat and he wasn’t thinking clearly. The sight of her—friend, not foe—calmed him somewhat.

“Hey,” he said. “You’re Finn’s friend, right?”

“I’m Rey,” she said. Her hair was a mess, Poe saw, and her clothes were torn and tattered. “Are you Poe?”

Poe did his best to grin. “That’s me,” he said. “I’m Poe Dameron.”

Rey came over to him slowly. When Poe made no move, she sat nearby, across from him at the base of another tree.

“Have you been to see him?” Rey asked, pulling her knees up to her chest. She looked very small and sad. Poe wondered where she’d come from. He knew that she and Finn had teamed up at some point before they’d crossed paths with the Resistance, but that was it. During the short period Finn had been on base before they attacked Starkiller, Poe hadn’t had the opportunity to sit down and talk to him about much of anything.

Poe nodded. “They’ll get him back,” he said. “Finn’s a fighter.”

Rey looked askance. “It’s my fault.”

Poe’s stomach dropped. “No, whatever happened—”

“The man in the forest,” she said. “If I’d been stronger, I might have defeated him sooner. I’m sorry.”

“What?” Poe asked.

“You care about him,” Rey said slowly, biting her bottom lip. “Finn, I mean.”

Well, of course Poe cared about Finn—Finn had completed his mission, had saved the Resistance, had saved _him_.

After staring at Rey for a moment, it clicked.

“Oh,” he said. “No, I— We only met a few minutes before we crash-landed on Jakku. He got me away from the First Order after I was captured.”

Rey’s eyes widened. “Oh, I just— I’m sorry, I—”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Poe said, waving one hand as Rey made to stand. “Stay, it’s fine. I guess passing out on the tarmac gave the wrong impression.”

Rey smiled a little. “It was something,” she said, settling back in. Poe noticed that her gaze lingered on his flight suit, on the Resistance logo on his chest.

“You’re a pilot?” Rey asked.

“That’s right,” Poe said. “Best the Resistance has.” He grinned, and she grinned back.

“I’m a pilot, too,” she said. “I can fly some.”

“You going to take up an X-wing?” Poe asked.

Rey pursed her lips and looked away. “Leia wants me to try to track down the rest of the map and find Luke Skywalker.”

Poe raised an eyebrow. “Leia?” he asked. “Don’t let anyone around here hear you call her that.”

“What? But she said to.”

Poe hesitated. “It’s a respect thing,” he said. “I guess if she said so, but to everyone around here, she’s the General. General Organa.”

“General Organa,” Rey repeated. “That’s a lot.”

Poe laughed a little. “Yeah, I guess it is. But that’s her title.” He thought about it for a moment, then said, “I guess we ought to head back.”

“Hm?”

“If you’re on a first-name basis with the General, you’re probably needed back on base,” he said, standing. “They’ll probably be meeting soon, figure out what to do next.” Rey rose to her feet and spared a look up at the trees.

They walked back to base in silence. Around them, D’Qar was alive with sound and color. Poe heard something like birds chirping—D’Qar’s wildlife was something else he knew nothing about, but some creatures made those cute noises, and back home they were birds. The trees swayed in a gentle breeze, and the ground crunched under the feet of both Rey and Poe.

Up ahead, Poe could hear people celebrating, albeit faintly. They were most all inside, drinking and making merry. The tarmac was quiet, the Millennium Falcon a hulking mass parked on the edge of everything.

“This is your first time here, isn’t it?” Poe asked suddenly.

Rey said, “Yes. It is. There’s green everywhere across the galaxy, isn’t there?”

Poe glanced at her. She was looking back at the trees as if they were something tremendous.

“Where are you from, initially?”

Rey hesitated. “I grew up on Jakku,” she said.

That explained why she looked at everything green as if it were something out of a fantasy holo. To her, it probably did.

“Not much green there,” Poe said, “but there’s lots of other habitable places. You’ll be seeing a lot of it.” Rey continued to stare. “Come on, I’ll show you around inside,” Poe said. “We’ll get you set up.”

* * *

Poe didn’t get a chance to do that. He meant to take Rey to General Organa and surreptitiously slip away—he felt awkward with her in a way that he hadn’t with Finn or anyone else—but no sooner had they reached her than R2-D2 woke up, and the base went into an uproar.

Poe slid the map piece Lor San Tekka had given him out of the holoprojector and back into BB-8 at the droid’s insistence. Then, with the completed map hanging above his head, he stood back with the rest and stared.

“That’s it, then,” Rey said quietly beside him. She stared at that last dot, where Luke undoubtedly was—or, had been going. It had been how long now?

“Do you need a pilot?” Poe asked seriously.

Rey shook her head, still staring at the map as it hung in the air. “Thanks, but… I’ll take the Falcon.”

“That takes two pilots,” Poe said, even as he realized that she intended to take Chewbacca.

“You’ve been very kind to me, Poe,” Rey said. “And to Finn. I’ll be all right.”

Poe nodded and smiled. “Well, if you change your mind,” he said.

* * *

Before Rey left early the next morning, she spoke to Poe. They stood on the edge of the tarmac—Poe had gone out to make repairs on his X-wing and hadn’t gotten a lick of sleep for the nightmares that plagued his mind. Rey didn’t look any better.

“I went to see Finn,” she said abruptly, startling him. He dropped a wrench on his foot and nearly hit his head on one of the wings.

“Is he up?” Poe asked, a little too fast, grimacing at the shooting pain in his toes.

Rey’s face said it all: _not yet_. “What happened to him,” she said, “I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry, it’s my fault.”

“What?”

* * *

 _Ben._ General Organa’s son, long thought dead—murdered along with the rest of the Jedi.

 _Kylo Ren_. The monstrosity who’d torn Poe’s mind to pieces and hadn’t bothered stitching him back up again.

 _They were one in the same_. He’d tried—nearly succeeded—to kill Finn.

Poe wondered when— _if_ —General Organa meant to tell him.

“Thank you,” Poe managed to say, keeping the shake out of his voice. It was clear enough to him that Rey felt guilty—Ren had sliced Finn’s spine and the destruction of the planet had prevented her from taking his life in return. Even so, Poe couldn’t lay this at her feet. No one could. She’d fought a monster and survived. In a galaxy full of monsters that had a history of winning, that was quite the victory.

“Take care of Finn?” Rey asked.

“Of course,” Poe promised rashly. Of course he’d take care of Finn. How could he not?

Rey backed away, heading toward the Millennium Falcon. A crowd gathered as Chewbacca loaded the ship, R2-D2 beeping obscenely to get people to move out of the way. Poe joined the mob and watched Rey exchange brief words with General Organa before she took off. All the while, he wondered why he was suddenly so eager to leave himself, why he couldn’t sleep or even sit still without shaking. It was over. They were safe, if only for the moment. Rey was going to become a Jedi, Finn would wake up, and they’d lead the Resistance to victory.

Poe had to believe that, or he’d go mad. He forced himself to turn away after the Millennium Falcon disappeared into space, aware that General Organa watched his every move.

* * *

“Rey left today,” Poe said, talking as soon as he hit the medbay doors. He didn’t know where else to go, but he’d found himself here, so there was no reason not to check on his—on Finn. Finn was where he had been the day before, still and unmoving save for the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Or—he had to have been moved. Wires extended out from underneath him all along his body. They led to a terminal at which several medics sat, gesturing at signs and numbers Poe didn’t understand.

“She cares about you, buddy,” Poe said, swallowing. He’d never seen Finn’s face relaxed. He’d hardly seen Finn’s face _at all_. It was a good face. He was a good man, he was— “We all do. I promised her, I promised I’d help you. Force knows I owe you, huh? So much for getting a pilot.”

Poe looked to one side and stared at the grey duracrete walls. They’d have to move base soon. The First Order was crippled, but only temporarily. They knew to fire at the Ileenium system. They’d do a bombing run as soon as they had their feet under them—they had hours at worst, a few days at best. _Not long enough_. Victory had started to feel less like victory to Poe.

“I’m probably going to be sent off on flights,” Poe confessed, “so I won’t be here all the time.” He looked at the medics—they appeared to be arguing amongst themselves and not paying Poe the slightest bit of attention. “I wish you were up and at ‘em with me, buddy,” he said. “You’re a damn good shot.”

He reached out to clap Finn on the shoulder, then thought better of it.

When he stood, turning away, he found the door blocked by none other than General Organa.

“Poe,” she said, “a word.”

* * *

There was red—no, maroon, red made dark because it was wet—together with tear stains and calloused hands and brave smiles—but they all vanished, swallowed up in something else. Blue, so much blue—but soft, bright, shining. Hurt. Bleeding. Seeking something.

Both disappeared, and Finn felt alone.

* * *

The Resistance never stayed in one place long enough to establish permanent infrastructure. They used pre-existing bases when they could, and suffered through the environment when they couldn’t. When they’d found this base on D’Qar, it had been ancient by anyone’s standards. The Resistance had fixed it up well enough in a short enough span of time, though, and it served its purpose. Before, it had been an outpost of some variety, and its dedicated rooms were lacking at best.

As such, General Organa didn’t have anything so mundane as an _office_. Instead, when she wanted to talk to someone in private, she went to the roof. That’s where she took Poe, leading the way by several strides, never mind their height difference.

“Poe,” she said, when they were in open air.

“General,” he said, nodding.

“Rey told you before she left,” she said, staring across the base to the trees. There were lakes in the distance—deep, cold bodies that Poe had swum in when they’d first made camp, before they’d found out about the nasty things that lived in the bottom and enjoyed nothing more than dragging down an unsuspecting pilot or three for breakfast. “She told you about Ben.”

Poe licked his lips. “Yes,” he said. “She did.”

“He killed Han,” General Organa said, turning to him. Rey had mentioned that, but Poe listened intently anyway. “He’s been working with the First Order since he left.” She sighed. “His mind is not his own. I know that’s no consolation to you. Even so, I must demand that you keep this information to yourself—for all of us.”

Poe looked at the ground. He knew an order when he heard one, no matter how veiled. It was no consolation whatsoever, but what could he say? How could he make General Organa—Ben’s— _Kylo Ren’s_ —mother understand what he’d gone through? How Poe had felt him digging in his mind with all of the finesse of a rancor? How he’d pulled memories out, one by one, only to smash them, tossing them aside as if his life meant nothing at all?

“I heard you say,” General Organa continued, “that you’re going to run flights. Can you?”

“Of course,” Poe said. The answer came as naturally as breathing.

General Organa didn’t look so sure. “You haven’t slept since we found you,” she said, voice neutral. Poe went cold at her tone. “The other pilots have told me that you’ve been having nightmares. You wake screaming—”

“Forgive me, General,” Poe said, falling back on formality even as he committed the unforgivable sin of interrupting a superior officer. “I’m fine.”

_Lie._

General Organa pursed her lips and looked back out over the horizon.

“The truth is,” she said, “we lost more than half of our fleet in that last battle. We _need_ you to fly.” She worked her jaw. “I wish I could ground you. I would, if I could.”

Poe stood up straighter. The sun seemed too bright in his eyes now that he’d been out in it for a while, and talk of sleep only emphasized how exhausted he felt.

“We convene up here in three hours time. Two missions, six pilots total, with the rest remaining here pending intel on the First Order’s current movements. Pick your five best and report back when it’s time.”

* * *

Karé Kun. L’ulo. Iolo Arana. Jessika Pava. Temmin Wexley. Poe would be the sixth.

Two missions, six pilots total. Three for recon—they needed to know what the First Order’s next order of business would be, and they needed it yesterday. The other three would scatter—they needed a new _base_ , and they needed that the day before yesterday.

Karé, Iolo, and Temmin would take recon. L’ulo, Jess, and Poe would scatter across the galaxy and report back once they found someplace that seemed relatively safe.

L’ulo was headed toward the Core. They were unlikely to find anywhere uninhabited in that region, but it was just possible that they could find a friendly system as temporary headquarters. Karé would fly as an accompaniment, looking for First Order activity. Jess would be heading up toward the Mid Rim, taking care to avoid the First Order loyal sectors, particularly Arkanis, which had become especially militant over the past several standard years. In contrast, Iolo was headed _specifically_ for those sectors in order to determine what, if anything, was happening with the enemy.

Poe, for his part, was to travel along the Western Reaches and the Outer Rim, far from the Core, heading out to the Unknown Regions. He was to scout as far as Endor, one of the last known safe havens before he hit that vast expanse of territory where the First Order knew the stars better than anyone else. Beyond that, Temmin would take over recon, looking to see just how far the First Order had grown in the darkest reaches of the galaxy.

With their orders, the pilots scattered, and Poe found himself at a loss, adrift. Temmin would be leaving soon, flying along Poe’s path, but they needed to stagger themselves anyway to avoid drawing attention, so he was grounded for the moment. Besides that, though, Poe found he didn’t want to leave. Not yet.

* * *

“Hey, buddy.”

Poe sat beside Finn’s bed, ignoring the tittering medics in the corner. He had heard them arguing about supplies when they came in. With any luck, L’ulo and Jess might return with supplies, or at least new contacts. If they didn’t…

Poe swallowed and fixed his eyes on Finn, taking one hand in his own. His skin felt flimsy and thin under Poe’s hands. He didn’t know if he was allowed to touch Finn, but it felt wrong not to. Awake or not, Finn was trapped in the medbay all by himself. Poe didn’t want Finn to feel alone. Finn had been isolated for the duration of his life, hidden away behind the armor of a stormtrooper, effectively a nonentity. Poe didn’t wish that on anyone, but he particularly bristled at the thought that the First Order had tried to turn _Finn_ , one of the kindest and most daring people Poe had ever had the pleasure to meet, into one of them.

He squeezed Finn’s hand, hoping to push reassurance and compassion into his friend. Finn’s face, lax with sleep, showed no awareness of the action.

“I’m going to go away for a while,” Poe said. He whispered as if it were a secret, as if they weren’t in the middle of a medbay. “I know I promised Rey I’d keep you safe, but I can’t do that if I stay here. We don’t know when the First Order will attack.”

Poe used his free hand to push a few errand strands of hair out of his face. With his other, he continued to hold onto Finn.

“I don’t want to leave,” Poe said. _Lies_. “Or, I do, but—” He swallowed. “Can I tell you a secret?”

No response. Poe guessed Finn didn’t hear him anyway.

“I can’t sleep,” Poe said. “I can’t eat. It’s this— It’s this constant _feeling_ , like he’s still in my head. You were trapped near him—I’ll bet you know what that feels like. But, the things he showed me…” Poe swallowed, hunching over Finn’s body. “It’s hard to shake. I’ll get it, though. I’ll get it for both of us. And when you wake up, maybe I’ll be back, but when I get back and you wake up I’ll show you around. We’ll probably have a new base then. I’ll introduce you to my friends—I wanted to do that before, but. You know.” Poe smiled. He was rambling. “I’m sorry, buddy. You didn’t need any of that.”

He squeezed Finn’s hand again, then let go.

“I promise,” Poe said. “It looks bad now, but we’re going to get through this. You’ll wake up, and I’ll get over this,” Poe said, gesturing at his own head, “and I’ll… We’ll do this.”

Finn remained impassive, unmoving.

* * *

Red. So much red, all encompassing and surrounding. Careful, gentle, smooth, but steadily growing darker. Sadness and pain.

Please, please let it stop.


	2. Chapter 2

Poe left and came back, as did the other pilots. The Resistance moved from one humid green planet to another—Niura, located along the Western Reaches, coincidentally not so far from Jakku.

Poe thought Finn might find that funny, or not so funny. They couldn’t seem to get away from that beige dustball after all.

“Hey, Finn,” Poe said as he caught sight of him. One medbay was much like the next, and Poe made a point of visiting Finn whenever he could.

Finn still wasn’t awake. It had been weeks. Poe tried not to lose faith.

“Back again,” Poe said, coming to sit by Finn’s bedside. After they’d first moved and Poe was on his first handful of visits to Finn’s bed, the medics on duty would bring a seat for Poe and take it away when he left. Now, it remained there constantly.

“Hell of a run,” Poe said, running his fingers through his hair. He was a mess, sweat-drenched and still in his flightsuit. He knew that he stank, a combination of oil and sweat and that rancid stench specific to space travel, but Finn wasn’t complaining. “Didn’t lose anyone—near thing, though. I thought I was a goner for a few, and Temmin lost his V6 unit. Gave the FO a run for their credits, though. We’re still pushing them back, one run at a time.” Poe sighed. “I’m going to get cleaned up and come back, all right? I’ll tell you all about it once my hands stop shaking.”

Poe, still quivering from the adrenaline and the ever-present voice of Kylo Ren at the back of his mind telling him that he wasn’t good enough to save his friends and never would be, rose and left the medbay.

* * *

_He could feel Ren rummaging around in his mind._

_“Your mother?” Ren asked. “Died for a lie.”_

_“Get out of my head,” Poe rasped._

_Ren pushed harder._

Poe woke screaming, breathing heavily and sweating. He wanted to cry, or be sick.

(He did both. Next door, Temmin pretended not to hear anything and rolled back over. Poe cleaned his own quarters and pretended it hadn’t happened.)

* * *

“Finn,” Poe said, “great day out there today. No sign of the Order in this region, but it never hurts to be too careful. We’ve contracted with a mercenary group—remains of the New Republic military. They’re sharing supplies with us. They want to be a separate entity—they’ve still got this idea that they’re the official military, like there’s still one of those anywhere in the entirety of the galaxy—but they’re cooperative and share the same vision. I think we’ve got a chance.”

* * *

_Sometimes the scenery changed. Today they weren’t in the interrogation room but in the flight hangar. Poe stood before Ren but couldn’t move. There was a wall of stormtroopers arrayed all around them in a circle. One of them was Finn. He wore his helmet and was indistinguishable from the rest, but Poe knew he was there. He knew it as certainly as he knew his own fear. If he could just catch Finn’s eye, they could escape, they could be free, they could—_

_Ren had him rooted in place, unable to move. The stormtroopers—and Finn, which one was he, which one…?—made ready their blasters._

_“The best pilot in the Resistance,” Ren sneered. “What makes you think you can stop me?”_

_Ren removed his helmet, and Poe saw General Organa’s face._

When Poe finally woke, he clutched his pillow close and recited the sequence for take-off of a standard X-wing sixteen times before giving up and getting dressed.

* * *

Poe sighed, holding Finn’s hand in his own. “Can’t sleep again, buddy,” he said, exhausted. He was shaking, or Finn was shaking, or they _both_ were shaking. “I hope you don’t mind me staying here and talking to you. Have you ever been to Yavin IV? Probably not, right. I don’t think the First Order’s ever attacked there. It’s where I grew up. There’s this tree…”

* * *

_They were back on Jakku. Poe knelt before Ren, kicked to the ground. He hardly felt like himself, beaten and subdued._

_“Where’s the map?” Ren demanded. He threaded through Poe’s thoughts, burning everything he found. A vision filled his consciousness—his friends, his fellow pilots, all lynched, still hanging by their snapped necks, their bodies used for target practice. Poe screamed, and Ren pushed harder into his mind. He couldn’t hold up, he couldn’t, he—_

* * *

“Rey made contact today,” Poe said, talking as soon as he saw Finn. He’d come straight from the holocall to Finn’s bedside. “Wanted to know how you were. I told her, I’ve been with you the whole time. She’s really worried about you. She said she’d find you through the Force. I hope she does. I want to see you—I mean, I see you right now, and you look great—I mean— I want you to wake up, Finn. Come back to us.”

(Rey had told Poe that he looked terrible. He’d laughed. No one else had.)

* * *

 _Poe Dameron_.

Poster boy of the Resistance, ace pilot, doer of the impossible. Rumor had it that he’d finally cracked under the pressure of it all. Most pilots had a short enough shelf life: they were shot out of the sky and died or got themselves addicted to liquor or drugs and died or else quit and died because flying was all that they’d had. Those who survived were no longer themselves, twisted by what they had seen and been party to, hollowed out by war.

Poe seemed to have taken another route: he’d gone insane.

“General Organa,” Jess said, finding the General in the halls of their only recently completed base. “May I have word?”

General Organa gave a short nod. The women walked together, Jess following a step behind the General. They might have attracted stares, but General Organa had always been good at going unnoticed in situations like this.

Jess said, “The last few runs against the First Order have gone well. We’ve established several new contacts, we’ve made new trade agreements, and our supplies are almost at peak levels. We’ve been performing excellently.”

General Organa already knew all of this. She waited for the real concern to come out.

“Iolo and I have done most of the negotiating,” Jess said. “Normally, Poe does this sort of thing, but…”

“But?” General Organa asked, eyeing Jess sharply. Poe _always_ did “that sort of thing”. Poe was the sort of person people liked to say “yes” to whenever possible, and the Resistance had used that charm whenever possible. _The Dameron_ , several pilots called it. Just what ‘it’ was remained as elusive as holos of Darth Vader before he took up the mantle, or, even better, his wife, who remained lost to history in spite of General Organa’s long hours of searching. Poe simply had a way about him—a smile and a strut and a habit of implying without stating outright that the other person would get something more out of the trade agreement. (They never did, so far as the General knew, but no one had yet complained.) Poe was a gift in that regard.

Jess took in a deep breath, then said, “He hasn’t been himself. None of us know what to do. He spends all of his time with that stormtrooper—Finn.” General Organa could see Jess’s wince. No doubt Poe had corrected everyone who called Finn “the stormtrooper” without mercy. “He doesn’t sleep. He hardly eats.”

“Has his BB unit reported anything?” General Organa asked.

“BB-8 has an unusual loyalty subprogram,” Jess said. “If it has anything to say, it won’t tell us. But even the droid doesn’t seem as _chipper_ as it used to be.” Jess sighed. “We don’t know what to do,” she repeated. “We’re worried he’s going to do something stupid—stupider than usual.”

“I’ll talk to him and get a feel of the situation,” General Organa advised. “In the meantime, I want you and the others to keep an eye out. If we’re going to be down a pilot, we need to be more vigilant than ever.”

“Yes, General,” Jess said, nodding shortly. The pilot headed off, leaving General Organa alone.

She’d known of Poe’s frequent visits to Finn’s bed. She knew that his nightmares had gotten worse, that he could hardly sleep for nightmares revolving around Ben— _Kylo Ren_ , General Organa thought. In this, there was a difference. Her son hadn’t tortured Poe. The boy she’d raised had been incapable of violence. He’d cried when his father had quashed an insect once—he’d been inconsolable for hours. The thing that had masked him, buried him under Dark; she would smite that being to bring her son home.

For now, though, she needed to get to the bottom of this, of why Poe had failed to recover and why he seemed so desperate to go on every mission that presented itself. It had been necessary when they’d still been at D’Qar, but now they had support of an auxiliary fleet—the remains of the New Republic’s might. There was no need for it, and yet Poe flew more than anyone else, took the most risks, and through some combination of the Force and luck and whatever else, he’d survived physically if not mentally unscathed.

So far, anyway. General Organa didn’t believe in luck, and she didn’t think the Force did much to ensure anyone’s survival without the intervention of someone who could manipulate it. Poe was going to get himself killed, and she had to do something to stop it.

Unfortunately, she had a feeling Poe was going to fight her every step of the way.

* * *

“Dameron.”

Poe swallowed, nervous and suddenly dizzy. General Organa only used his last name when she meant business. The hairs on the back of Poe’s neck prickled as he tinkered with his X-wing. He was meant to leave in just a few minutes: BB-8 was already in position and the ship was ready to fly. Even so, he’d been knocking around ideas for modifications when the General had snuck up on him.

Thoughts bombarded him all at once—he hadn’t eaten or drank enough lately, that’s why he felt so horrible, that and he couldn’t sleep, and everything had a ring of light around it, you know? And he didn’t want to let her know any of this because if she knew she’d be worried and if she were worried—

“ _Dameron_.”

Poe turned to face General Organa. He wobbled a little bit, losing his balance. He grinned to cover it up.

General Organa didn’t look amused.

“You’re grounded.”

 _What_?

Poe didn’t realize he’d vocalized the question until General Organa said, “I was going to talk to you, advise you to take it easy and get some rest, but even I can see that you’re too far gone. Report to the medbay immediately. I’m sending Iolo in your place.”

Poe panicked— _yes_ , he’d go to the medbay, of course, he went several times a day to check up on Finn, one more time couldn’t hurt, but _no_ , he wouldn’t be grounded, he couldn’t be, he—

“General,” Poe said, “wait a moment. You can’t ground me.” General Organa fixed him with a glare, and Poe felt himself wither a little under it. “General, we’re short enough on pilots as it is, even with the mercs. Let me do this run now—I was just getting ready to leave. BB-8’s already loaded.”

General Organa continued to glare at him. Poe swallowed again, nervous, and was she shaking or was he? He was, probably. He’d never seen the General shake.

“Make it quick, Dameron, before I change my mind,” General Organa said. “As soon as you get back, you report to the medbay. I find out you’ve done anything else, whether it be signing up for another run or going to spend time with your friends, you won’t be up in that X-wing in time to win the war.”

It was an empty threat—they needed him up there, Poe had to be up there—but it stung because he knew General Organa _wanted_ to mean it. Poe shook his head furiously, and his brain bounced around painfully in his skull.

“I won’t let you down,” he promised. “I’ll report to the medbay as soon as I return, no other stops.” He started to back up, General Organa watching him with ever step.

“See to it that you don’t,” she said. “May the Force be with you. Be _safe_ , Poe.”

Poe smiled and climbed into his X-wing. His vision was still blurry—there seemed to be dark patches in his peripheral vision that weren’t there when he tried to focus on them—but he was cleared for this next run, at least. All he had to do was show up to the medbay, convince them that there was nothing wrong with him, keep going on about his business, and everything would be fine. Poe didn’t want to trouble anyone over his own issues. He couldn’t sleep—he figured that was what happened when someone broke down your mental barriers and ransacked your brain looking for secrets.

Still. He was handling it. He was flying as well as ever, working to take down the First Order, bringing back supplies that they’d commandeered or bartered for and keeping the Resistance afloat. He was proud of his work. He felt sick, but it was worth it to keep going. What did he have if he stopped?

BB-8 beeped at him before the cockpit sealed itself, concerned about what the General had said.

“I know,” Poe said. “I know. But I’ve got to do this.”

BB-8 whistled and let out another series of beeps. Poe smiled, aware even as he did it that it was a tired smile—he felt tired. If he wasn’t fooling the General, he wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all his little droid.

“Come on,” he said. The cockpit sealed and pressurized. “We’ve got a job to do.”

Poe initiated start-up and got ready to take off. He input his new coordinates—Sullust, where the Rebel forces had grouped before the Battle of Endor. Now, a battalion from the tattered New Republic forces had stationed themselves there.

As Poe reached to throttle the engines, a pain shot through his fingers straight to his head. It felt as if someone had put knives in his eyes, and he pulled his hand back in, shaking.

A memory played itself for him.

_Poe sat in his mother’s lap, watching her manipulate the controls of an old A-wing. She spoke, not Basic but her own native tongue. Poe spoke it as well as she did, or as well as a six-year-old could speak anything._

_Except, now, Poe couldn’t understand her. He looked up and saw her lips moving, forming phrases that he knew he used to understand. It was gibberish to his ears. She spoke louder, trying to convey her point, distressed by her son’s ignorance as to her meaning. She gestured, and Poe reached up, trying to understand. His hands passed through her skin and hit her bones, and she screamed, her hair falling out, her face falling apart. They were crashing, falling—_

Poe jolted back to reality, breathing heavily. The panel in front of him was full of queries, all from BB-8, all concerned. He gasped, trying to will himself to calm down.

That wasn’t real. He knew that. Poe had called on one of his favorite childhood memories—a time when he was little, when his mother had finally taken him up in her A-wing to teach him to fly—in order to combat Kylo Ren’s intrusion into his head. Ren had twisted it and bent it out of recognition until it was something gruesome and horrific.

Still. This was something new. He’d had dreams—nightmares—but they’d never passed into his waking hours.

Poe flexed his hands, feeling gloves instead of yielding flesh and the hard press of bones. His mother hadn’t died in that A-wing with Poe in her lap, though she was dead now. Ren couldn’t touch her, only the memory of her, and only that if Poe allowed him to.

“Come on,” Poe said, aware that his voice came out as a weak stutter rather than any sort of a convincing command. “Let’s do this.”

He shook as he placed his hand back on the throttle. He swallowed and eased the lever back, firing up the X-wing. Just like that, the engines roared, and they were off.

Poe’s back pressed against the seat as the ship darted forward. He pulled up on the controls, readying to lift off of the runway and clear the trees, but they felt heavy in his hands—harder than normal to pull. His vision swam. He saw his mother’s fingers, her teeth as her lips dripped away. BB-8 put a warning on his console, but it was too late: he was flying out too low, and no matter how hard he pulled, he couldn’t get the controls to go up any higher. The X-wing approached the trees.

Poe cursed as he hit the first, and the second, and the third, bracing himself. Warnings went off all around him, the sensors interpreting the strikes as blaster fire. BB-8 squealed, but Poe couldn’t do anything. He had been frozen in place, immobilized. He remembered being strapped to that monstrous device, unable to move and at the mercy of a monster. Poe jerked in his seat, the feel of his harness unusually restrictive but especially so as the X-wing began to drop. Branches and leaves struck the cockpit and the rest of the ship as he plummeted the short distance he’d managed to get off of the ground. Alarms went off in his ears, blaring warnings about the low altitude and the system-wide damage.

When he hit ground, the impact left him unconscious. He wasn’t aware when the X-wing skidded, wings snapping off as they hit trees older than the original designs of the ship. He didn’t see as the ship nearly slammed into a lake, coming to rest mere meters from the edge. He knew only that he was hurt and trapped, and even that was through a haze of darkness.

* * *

General Organa heard it before she saw it, and felt it before she heard it.

There was _something_. She’d felt it before, albeit on a much larger scale, when the Hosnian System had been obliterated. She’d felt it when Alderaan had been destroyed. She’d felt it, too, when Han had died, too far from her.

Fear. Pain. Agony.

She went for the medbay without another thought.

As she approached, she heard it: someone was screaming and _loudly_.

“Hold him down!”

That was Mikkup. General Organa moved faster.

“I _am_ holding him down!” Allessr cried. “He’s strong— _oof_.”

General Organa burst into the medbay to see both medics wrestling with a screaming Finn.

“What is going on here?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” Mikkup said, breathless. Allessr had gone yellow from exertion. They both strained to keep Finn down—Finn, who shouted and strained and thrashed where he had laid day after day, unmoving.

“He just started,” Mikkup continued, blinking rapidly at General Organa. “His heart rate spiked. At this rate, he’s going to tear out the prosthetics we’ve managed to install—”

Allessr cursed as Finn managed to land a hit, then went back to trying to restrain him.

“General!”

General Organa spun away from the spectacle before her to catch sight of Jessika Pava.

“Pava,” the General said.

“It’s Poe,” Jess said, breathing heavily. “We all saw—he crashed on his way out. He lost control of the X-wing and went down.” General Organa took a deep breath. She should have been firmer, she should have grounded him, she should have— “We don’t have contact, but he didn’t get far. L’ulo and Iolo are headed out to retrieve him now. General, the crash, it looked—” Jess caught sight of Finn and blanched, trailing off. He was still screaming.

“Get Poe here, and hurry,” General Organa said. “That’s an order.” Jess scurried away to make it happen.

General Organa had never formally trained in the ways of the Force. Her time with her brother had told her that she’d been using it unconsciously throughout most of her life, quietly shaping the world around her with the power of suggestion. It had disturbed her. She’d wondered how many of her accomplishments were truly her own. How often had she willed an outcome? Bent someone’s will to her own devices? She had no idea.

What she did know was that _rage_ ran in her. Ever quick to anger and prone to argument, she had opinions and she stuck by them. It was true, there existed no records of the man who’d become Darth Vader, or the person with whom he’d fathered herself and Luke—the Empire had wiped away all of the man in favor of the monster—but General Organa needed to do no more than seek the truth with the Force to know: she shared these traits with her father. That knowledge left her with a constant struggle for inner peace in a galaxy that seemed ever on the verge of war.

Now, it left her with a simple dilemma. Finn was in agony. General Organa suspected she knew why. She knew how to stop it. Was it the right thing to do?

She shut her eyes and lifted a hand. She could see Finn there, through the Force—her own blue, his purple, and the black of the void between them—and wrapped her hand around him. With a wave, she subdued him, forcing him back to sleep.

When she opened her eyes, Allessr and Mikkup were staring at her.

“Dameron will be here shortly,” she said. “Keep the two of them close when he arrives. Neither one’s to leave. No one else is to come in.”

* * *

Colors swirled and twirled, sparkling and dancing. They and they alone made to fill the absolute void about them. Periodically, they showed flashes of something else. In a slash of blue there was an explosion, screams in a cold room, and a needle, intangible but still so painful. In another patch of blue, this one darker, there was a bridge, sorrow beyond translation, and the memory of a small child with dark hair and big ears.

The blues faded into purple—familiar. _Self_.

Then red—a siren screaming _WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING—_

* * *

Hands and arms and faces swam over him. Someone screamed— _he_ was screaming—and thrashed and pulled. The void pulled back, a black hole behind him threatening to drown him in darkness and silence.

He was yanked forward so that he sat upright. Hands everywhere, everywhere—

“You and you, get back. Finn, Finn,” someone said—not him, that wasn’t his voice. He knew that voice.

“Captain Phasma?”

“No, Finn, I’m—” A crash, then: “Bring him here— _right here, now_.” Blue. Authority. Finn didn’t know another stormtrooper captain who commanded so much power as Captain Phasma. It had to be her.

Finn blinked. The woman before him was wreathed in blue like the sky above Starkiller on a bright day. She had a name—Finn remembered her name, but it wasn’t Captain Phasma, it was—

“Do you know where you are?” she asked.

“No—yes,” Finn said, breathing deeply, gasping as he pulled in air. His back screamed as he took in a particularly deep breath and he shrieked again.

“He needs to lay back down—”

“I said get back,” the woman ordered. Finn blinked. The blue didn’t leave her. Finn knew she wasn’t blue; why did he see blue?

Beside him, something burned. He turned his neck—it hurt so badly, but he had to, he knew he had to—and saw red. There was a sea of it, vibrant and flaming and—sputtering?

There was Poe Dameron.

Finn felt the blood leave his face. His vision swam as dizziness took over, and for a moment, he was aware of nothing again.

More hands pulled him back up. He found himself laying on his side, staring at Poe’s unmoving face. It was getting easier to see him through the red fog because it was retreating, replaced by a gentle grey. Finn felt relief, then panic. The grey felt _wrong_.

“He’s going to be all right,” the woman said—General Leia Organa, scourge of the First Order—no, that wasn’t right, the savior of the Resistance. Finn was with the Resistance now. Starkiller was gone. Lord Ren—

“He’s going to be all right,” General Organa repeated. She looked down at him, eyes concerned.

“Poe,” Finn said.

“Yes,” General Organa said. She made a gesture Finn couldn’t completely see, and two people came to push Poe’s bed closer to Finn’s. Poe groaned. Closer, Finn could see a cut at his temple. Bruises were blooming along his neck. The rest of him, covered as it was by clothing, was an unknown, but Finn felt _hurt_. Poe was hurt.

“He needs help,” Finn said. His mouth was dry and he choked on the words.

“He’s going to be fine,” General Organa said. “There was an accident.”

Finn decided on the spot that he didn’t like that word.

“Poe,” he said. He reached toward him, but his arm ached and his body protested any form of movement. Instead, he lay as he was, staring, watching the red disappear.

“What’s happening?” he asked. It was too many words, or maybe too many syllables. His head felt as if it had been split by a blunt object.

“He’s hurt,” General Organa said. Finn already knew that, so he repeated his question. “Finn?”

“Red.”

“You see red?”

“Poe’s red,” Finn said, feeling weak. His mouth felt tired; _he_ was tired.

“I’ve helped him go to sleep,” General Organa said. “It will come back when he wakes.”

“He’s asleep,” Finn said. He stared at Poe. Poe didn’t move.

General Organa asked, “Do you still see the red, Finn?”

Finn frowned. It was still there—in Poe’s chest, but curled up on itself, small, sending a handful of spindly tendrils outwards that dissipated into nothing.

“A little,” Finn said.

“Good. A little’s better than nothing.” General Organa straightened herself, her face ashen. “This is worse than I thought.”

“General,” Allessr—though Finn only knew that the thing speaking was only partially humanoid and very yellow—said, “what do you mean, red?”

“Nothing. It appears that the First Order’s done more to Poe than we expected. I’ll be staying here to monitor him personally.”

“But General—”

General Organa glared, and that was that. She pulled up a seat between the two beds. Finn found he couldn’t look away from Poe. Finn himself finally started to feel awake. His mind had calmed somewhat—the mention of the First Order did that, he supposed—and he could feel every bit of himself, from his scalp down to his toes. His back hurt in a distant sort of way.

He remembered Han Solo, the forests of Starkiller Base, Rey, the fight against Lord Ren.

 _Kylo_ Ren. Finn could use his name now in place of an honorific. Or, what had Han called him? Ken? Ben? It hadn’t been Ren.

It didn’t really matter. Finn watched Poe’s face. Kylo Ren had interrogated Poe. Finn remembered getting him out of that room and hustling him into an empty hall to hatch a mad plan of escape.

Finn shivered. He’d seen what Kylo Ren could do on a battlefield, and he’d heard rumors about what he could do to a person’s mind. What had Poe gone through? Looking at him now, Finn guessed: nothing good. Finn felt remorse for not getting him out sooner and anger at the First Order—no, _rage_ —

Across the room, there came a crash.

Finn found he couldn’t roll over to see what the problem was, but whatever General Organa saw had her rising to her feet.

“Mikkup, Allessr,” she said.

“It hurts,” one of them said. “It— Oh, _oh_ …”

General Organa moved out of Finn’s line of sight. When he could see her again, she was dragging two figures—the yellow one, and someone else Finn hadn’t seen. They were unconscious and twitching.

“Finn,” General Organa said, pulling them both toward the door, “Finn, I need you to concentrate. Can you do that for me?”

Finn wanted to say yes—he very much wanted to say yes. Instead, he looked back to Poe. He’d failed Poe, and now Poe was hurt, and the people who’d done it were still out there, and he was _furious_ —

“ _Finn_ , _look at me._ ”

Finn’s eyes snapped to General Organa. She drew herself up to her full height, lips pursed, face ashy.

“Finn, I need you to concentrate on Poe. I need you to think about good things—I need you to channel all of your friendship, all of your care for him to him. Not anger—he needs your compassion. Finn, I need you to concentrate.”

But—

One of the two figures by the door groaned, spasming violently.

Finn looked to Poe. While he’d been looking elsewhere, a sheen of sweat had developed across Poe’s face. His breaths were shallow. The red had receded even more.

Finn thought of the _Finalizer_ , how he’d found Poe in his restraints and gotten him out. He thought of how Poe had grinned at him, how excited he’d seemed in spite of the danger because it meant he got to pilot a TIE fighter. He thought of when Poe had given him a name, when they’d reunited after the attack on Takodana. He thought of Poe’s jacket—now that he thought of it, he didn’t know where it was. He was sorry it had probably been destroyed during the fight on Starkiller, but he’d appreciated it all the same. Poe had given it to him. It had been _his_.

Slowly, the red brightened, expanded against the grey.

“Good,” General Organa said. “Good.”

Finn closed his eyes, picturing Poe in his mind. He wasn’t aware of anything after the fight on Starkiller, though he had bits of things. He’d seen this red before, many times. It had been laced with _tired_ and _pain_ and _fatigue_ and Finn had wanted it to stop. He’d wanted it to be _bright_ and _happiness_ and _sunlight_ and the things he half-remembered from a purple dream. He pushed all of those at Poe.

Only when he actively imagined himself pushing abstract notions did he realize what he was doing.

Finn’s eyes popped open. Poe looked less like death and more like himself. General Organa was talking to someone at the entrance of the room—the medbay, Finn figured.

He shook, looking down at himself—he was purple. Across the room, General Organa was blue. One of the medics looked like a rusted bucket, the other like blaster fire. Poe was steadily becoming red.

Finn was seeing colors that weren’t there. Either he’d gone crazy, or this was something to do with the Force.

He took in a deep breath, trying to keep himself from panicking. This was fine—Rey had the Force, right? That was a thing, so maybe it could be a thing with him—except—

It wasn’t fine. Finn felt himself start to shake. Across from him, Poe started to do the same.

Was that…? Finn gulped. _No_. That wouldn’t do. Finn took in another breath, and another, and another. Across from him, Poe failed to do the same, but he looked a little less pale. Finn guessed that counted for something.

* * *

General Organa stood in that medbay for what seemed like an eternity. Allessr was out cold, but Mikkup came around after a bit. She called in the medics from the next shift to take care of them, and after handing them off, looked back to Finn and Poe.

 _Finn_. Funny, how the Force manifested when one least expected it to. General Organa wondered how much Finn had done in the First Order—little things that might have sent him to _reconditioning_ , something she remembered both Poe and Finn mentioning. She wondered how much Finn’s desire for survival had affected Poe when they’d first met. Poe had just been interrogated and could have been susceptible to anything.

To see Finn now, it seemed ridiculous to wonder whether or not he’d tricked Poe, subconsciously or not, into stealing a TIE fighter and escaping the First Order. Finn lay on his side, staring intently at Poe, seemingly singularly focused on his friend. Finn cared for Poe. He was a compassionate person despite his upbringing—or, perhaps more accurately, in spite of it.

Impressively, his efforts appeared to be working. General Organa could see the red that meant _Poe_ coming back, bit by bit. Finn was nearly fluorescent with purple, a deep, churning violet streaked with glints of white, all directed at Poe.

* * *

Poe woke to Finn intently staring at him.

There could be no denying it: Poe yelped, cursed, and lurched backwards, startled. Finn’s eyes widened, but he didn’t otherwise move.

“Finn?” Poe asked, or tried to. His voice was hoarse from disuse. “Buddy?” _How_ , Poe wanted to ask. He’d been in his X-wing with BB-8. He’d been headed out.

It came back to him in waves: the vision, and the crash. His mother’s face as it dripped, as she died. Himself screaming.

“Poe,” Finn said. “Poe, it’s okay, stay with me, stay with me…”

Poe resurfaced, saw Finn again.

“Finn,” he breathed.

“That’s right, it’s me, it’s Finn,” Finn said. He made to reach out and winced as if hurt.

 _Oh_. Because he was. Poe could see the wires still protruding from his spine.

“Don’t move too much, buddy,” Poe said. “They haven’t fixed you all the way yet.”

“Fixed…?”

“Your spine,” Poe said. He coughed. He was trying to talk too much, too soon, but it was Finn. He had to try.

Besides that, he had the feeling that Finn had saved him a second time. He couldn’t figure out why, but he felt phantom fingers that felt like Finn in his mind.

He wasn’t… Was he?

Poe shook the idea from his mind, actually shook his head, and gave himself a headache for the trouble.

“You’re a wreck, Dameron,” General Organa said. Poe sat bolt upright and immediately wished he hadn’t.

“General,” Poe said. “I—”

“None of that,” General Organa said. “You’re grounded. I shouldn’t have listened to you. You’re going to stay here until I decide otherwise.”

Poe cursed as soon as she was out of his line of sight, then lay back. Finn was still watching with wide eyes.

“What happened?” Finn asked.

Poe looked over to him. He doubted anyone had told Finn anything. How long had he been awake? He’d have to ask, but first, Finn had asked a question. Couldn’t leave him hanging, could he?

“I crashed,” Poe said. “I’ve been having—dreams. Nightmares. It’s not important, but I’ve been a little out of sorts. Nothing to worry about.” He could tell from Finn’s expression that he was very worried and not at all convinced by Poe’s bravado. “It’s fine. I promise.” He laughed. “It’s funny, telling you this now.” He coughed again. Too much, too soon. “I came by every day, you know? Told you lots of things. Do you remember?”

Finn shook his head.

Even though he’d been expecting the negative response. Poe felt himself sink a little. “No,” he said, “I guess you wouldn’t.”

“Every day?” Finn asked.

Poe felt himself sink _a lot_. Had he said that out loud? Yes, he’d said that out loud. _Damn it, Dameron_.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

Finn smiled. Poe would have been willing to do just about anything to see him do it again.


	3. Chapter 3

Finn still couldn’t leave the medbay.

“You fixed his spine,” Poe snapped at Mikkup one day while Finn was resting. He tossed and frowned in his sleep, a sharp contrast from the stillness that had lasted months.

“We’ve never made a prosthesis of this type before,” Mikkup said, Allessr watching from Finn’s bedside. They were checking vitals of some sort, not that there was anything abnormal to be found. Finn was preternaturally healthy in spite of the flexible fused bits that now made up the central part of his spine. “We need to make sure—”

“He’s alive,” Poe cut in. “You know it works.”

Mikkup grabbed Poe and pulled him down to eye-level.

“I know he’s _alive_ ,” Mikkup said, “but _why_?”

Poe stared back, stunned. “Are you saying you didn’t _want_ to save him?”

“No,” Mikkup said quickly. Poe could see the medic was attempting to hide something, but Mikkup continued, “We don’t know how he survived the attack _in the first place_. It should have killed him. _It severed his spine_. What’s more, he didn’t eat. He didn’t drink. His body seems to have put itself into some sort of stasis _by itself_ for months. Nothing about him _changed_. His kriffing _hair_ didn’t grow, _and we don’t know why._ ”

Poe didn’t have a response. He knew Finn had been hurt—and badly at that—but he hadn’t realized… He hadn’t thought…

“I’m sorry,” Mikkup said. “I see that you did not know.”

“No, it’s—” Poe was going for _fine_ , but there was so much that was _not fine_ that he couldn’t get it out. “Thank you,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

Mikkup stepped out of Poe’s personal space and said, “You must understand why we have to keep him a few more days at least. He’ll be released after we’ve made our report to the General.”

Poe nodded and looked to Finn’s bedside. They’d disconnected the wiring that had run to and from the artificial section of his spine so that he was free to move. If Finn had been so inclined, he could have gotten up off of the stretcher and made off by himself. If Finn could stand to wait another few days, it wasn’t Poe’s place to make a stink on his behalf.

“He’ll be waking up soon,” Mikkup said.

“What?”

Mikkup gestured in a way that resembled a shrug. “He’s been sleeping in discrete two hour intervals since he woke,” Mikkup said. “It’s nearly the two hour mark.”

* * *

Indeed, Finn woke fifteen minutes later. Poe waited that time, sitting in the seat that had become his own over days and across bases, staring at Finn. Lately, Poe didn’t have anywhere else to go: he was grounded until such a time as the General found fit to reverse her orders. The closest he could get to flying was to work on his X-wing and sit in the cockpit while it remained stationary.

The others had been sympathetic but relieved—at least, that’s what Poe thought. Jess had been openly glad to see him get some time off, though the others had more muted responses. They all believed that if Poe had some time on the ground, he might get better.

It pissed him off, if only because he _did_ seem to be getting better. It wasn’t that he didn’t want them to be right—he wasn’t so petty as that—but he wanted to fly, wanted to have powered through whatever it was that that _thing_ had done to his head. He had the nagging feeling that he could have, if he’d just tried hard enough.

Those were dark thoughts; Poe knew they weren’t healthy. Staring at Finn as he slowly woke reminded him, though: when Poe had come around after the crash, Finn had been the first person he’d seen, and he’d been _terrified_. Poe had seen it in his eyes as they lay across from one another, and in Finn’s hands as they shook.

Nothing was worth that.

* * *

Finn came to with a sigh and a scowl. As soon as he caught sight of Poe, the expression vanished, replaced with something else—a little half smile, an echo of one Poe had seen for the first time on a massive Star Destroyer surrounded by trappings of the First Order. Poe hoped that smile was genuine because it did something to him—it made his head fuzzy and his cheeks warm like soft cotton left in the sun. He couldn't think too hard about it for fear of the ramifications.

“Poe,” Finn said. “What are you doing here?”

Poe shrugged. “Came to visit,” he said.

“It’s good to see you,” Finn said, trying to sit up. He winced and took in a sharp breath, but then he was upright. Poe wanted to do something to help but could do nothing more than stare. Besides that, he knew that Finn didn’t want him to. He wanted to recover on his own.

(Didn’t they all?)

“They let you fly yet?” Finn asked.

Poe shook his head. “No,” he said, “not yet.”

Finn looked crestfallen, but he said, “I’m sure they’ll let you up soon. They have to. You’re the best they’ve got.”

Poe felt his cheeks heating and tried to hold his expression without looking away, abashed. It was one thing to hear someone else say it, but this was _Finn_.

“ _One_ of the best,” Poe said, trying to make it into a joke, which it kind of was. You could hardly be the best pilot if you crashed off of the landing strip.

Finn snorted. “ _The_ best.”

“Eh,” Poe said. He didn’t want to fight with Finn, especially about something so silly—especially when he rather liked the idea of Finn saying so much. “I just want to get back out there, you know? All of my friends are out there, fighting, while I’m just…” He grimaced.

Finn’s smile was weak. “Most of them,” he said. Poe flushed harder, this time out of embarrassment. _Way to stick your foot in it, Dameron_.

“I didn’t mean—” he started quickly.

“I know,” Finn said. “I shouldn’t have—I just feel the same way. Rey’s out there learning to be a Jedi, and everyone here’s doing everything they can, and I’m stuck here because I lost a fight to _Kylo Ren_. Man’s a beast. There were bets going around—the most of the ‘troopers thought he was some kind of droid, you know? No one had ever seen him with his,” Finn gestured at his own head— _the helmet_ , Poe thought— “off.”

Poe hadn’t seen Ren without the helmet either, and he found he was glad. He could imagine whatever he wanted behind it—something monstrous, maybe. Hideous and twisted.

(Or, he could imagine what he wanted while he was awake. When his nightmares came around, it was almost always General Organa’s face under there, wicked and wrathful, but Han’s face had shown up once. So had Rey’s.)

Finn hunched just a little, and Poe caught sight of the prosthesis. Poe swallowed; this wasn’t about Poe and his nightmares, it was about Finn.

“I’m sorry,” Poe said, the words awkward in his mouth.

“Not your fault.”

“But—” Poe ran a hand through his hair again, oblivious to the fact that Finn watched his fingers as he did so. “I am,” he said. “I’m sorry _he_ happened to you.”

Finn laughed a little at that. “Well, he’ll be sorry when I happen to _him_ ,” he said. Poe cocked his head. “I decided—when I get out of here, I’m going to fight my hardest. When I meet him again…” Finn cracked the knuckles on one hand theatrically. “He’s going to remember me.”

“Next time, when you go, I’ll be there with you,” Poe said.

Finn smiled, and Poe got lost in it.

* * *

Poe visited Finn so often that whenever Poe _wasn’t_ there Finn had this phantom feeling that he _was_. It was as if he were looking for Poe every waking moment of his life now, and that his brain had tricked him into thinking he felt him all the time.

When Poe had woken after the crash, Finn had felt something—relief, he’d thought. But it hadn’t gone away. Poe had visited him every day, and something about that felt right. It wasn’t _normal_ —Finn knew that. When you got sick in the First Order, you were sent to Medical, but if anyone came to visit it was almost certainly Phasma, there to see if whatever had befallen you had in any way jeopardized your ability to perform and thus required reconditioning. The only other person you could see was one of a rotating number of medics that came and went without relaying much in the way of information. Finn hadn’t really had _friends_ —not the way the ‘troopers were friends, because he understood that type of friendship even if he hadn’t had that either, but _friends_ in the way Poe was his friend, something more meaningful and deeper and better—who would visit him just for him. He couldn’t imagine _not_ having Poe now.

When Poe wasn’t there, Finn wondered how he was doing: if he was happy, or sad, or angry; if he worked on his X-wing or if he was with BB-8 or if he was in a meeting with General Organa. Poe was important to the Resistance and couldn’t be with Finn all the time, and even though Finn knew that, he couldn’t shake this feeling of _Poe_. He knew how that red aura around him condensed into a ring that settled in his hair like some sort of crown, and he imagined he could trace the path of it from the medbay, follow it to the source, and there would be Poe. It was a craving—Finn was awake, and he wanted his friend. No better than a baby seeking a bottle.

Finn didn’t put together the pieces until Poe came to him one day long after Finn had woken up. Finn had thought that maybe this was a happy day for Poe—maybe he’d gotten caught up in repairs on his X-wing. He’d talked about it the day before, excited—or pretending to be; it was hard to tell with Poe—about the modifications he wanted to make. Poe so desperately wanted to fly that Finn wouldn’t put it past him to plaster those brilliant smiles across his face and hide all of the bad feelings behind it just to get back up in the air.

Still, Finn thought that maybe Poe was having a good day. He wanted him to, anyway. Maybe Poe was working on the engines—he hadn’t talked about that, but it was a possibility.

Poe came in with a smile on his face.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, beaming from ear to ear. He had an enormous glob of grease on one cheek that Finn doubted Poe knew about, his shirt was halfway unbuttoned, and he was absolutely dripping with sweat. He looked _thrilled_.

Finn’s chest jumped, and the monitor beside his bed started beeping faster. _Elevated heart rate_ , Finn saw. _No kidding_.

“Oh, did I startle you?” Poe asked, expression changing.

“I— No,” Finn said. “You’ve got a little something…” He gestured at Poe’s cheek. Poe swiped at it with two fingers and only succeeded in making it worse.

“Grease,” Poe said. He wiped his fingers on his trousers and came to sit by Finn’s bed. “Gets everywhere. I was working on the X-wing. I had this great idea for the engines last night…”

Poe was so engrossed in his story—the engines had been giving him kickback, so he’d finally dismantled one and found the problem—that he missed the look of terror that crossed Finn’s face.

* * *

From then on, Finn kept tabs on his “feelings” about Poe. It was difficult to do—once he started focusing on them, Finn realized that it was a constant barrage. It made sense, in a sick sort of way: Poe had a tendency towards perpetual motion. Based off Poe’s stories about his days and Finn’s own perceptions, Poe had the itch to _do_ , and so he did. He installed the modified engines, redid the circuitry in the cockpit, reupholstered the seats—his hands were covered in welts and calluses by the end of that particular project—and put a new coat of paint on the outside.

Each day, Finn guessed (to himself) what Poe was up to, and Poe would invariably come visit to confirm it. It was a game of sorts, one that left Finn more and more despondent with each passing day.

The reality of the situation—that Finn knew _everything_ Poe got up to while they were apart—ate at him. He had no idea how to broach the subject. This was his—his friend. Finn had learned how luxurious privacy could be over a lifetime of scavenging for moments of it, and now, somehow, he’d managed to unwittingly deprive Poe of even a second of it.

Finn wanted to tell him. He wanted to explain that it wasn’t his fault, that he wasn’t _trying_ to spy on Poe at all hours, but that it was there, in his head, as if someone were whispering the information to him. It was a constant stream of data, automated and mechanical, impersonal and all about Poe.

Finn didn’t know how the Force worked, if he had any chance at control or not, but he begged the universe to make it stop.

* * *

Poe had been grounded for far too long. People were starting to talk, and it was starting to drive him mad.

At least, he figured they were gossiping about him. It was the only explanation for why he felt as if he were being watched at all hours. He would look about—more frantically than not, lately—to see who or what was staring at him and why, but there was no one he could spot. He was a familiar face, and everyone knew his story by now. No one he passed paid him a single shred of unwarranted attention.

Even knowing that, though, the feeling refused to go away. The only time Poe felt as if he were alone was when he was with Finn. The phantom eyes went away then, replaced by Finn’s own gaze.

 _Finn_. There was the other reason Poe thought he’d gone off the deep end and into the abyss.

It had been weeks since he’d had his last paralyzing vision of Kylo Ren either awake or asleep. He’d had several episodes since his crash, each of them terrible but none of them enough to render him incapacitated. He was starting to sleep again, and his appetite was slowly but surely coming back.

In place of nightmares, though, Poe had started having other kinds of dreams.

They’d started innocuously enough. He and Finn were escaping the _Finalizer_ in one. They stole a TIE fighter without any complication and sped off toward Jakku. The flight seemed to take forever, and they talked aimlessly about whatever came to mind. Finn laughed at one of Poe’s jokes. Somehow, the insides of the TIE fighter were all moved around, and Poe got to see that smile up close and personal.

In another, Finn returned with Solo and Chewbacca following the attack on Takodana. Poe and Finn embraced, reunited after thinking each other dead. There was no more to it, except that once Poe awoke he understood that their gazes had been changed— _charged_ —and that their touches had lingered longer than they had in reality.

The dreams morphed over time.

The escape from the First Order lost its urgency. The TIE fighter unfolded into something bigger, something they could easily maneuver inside. Poe found himself away from the controls and standing next to Finn, who looked up at him with a hungry expression. (No bulky stormtrooper armor here; Finn was already in Poe’s jacket, and oh, he looked _good_.) Poe straddled Finn, grinding down as he traced Finn’s chest through his shirt, skirting the open front of the jacket. One of Finn’s hands came around to support Poe’s back, mapping his spine, while the other threaded through his hair, holding his head so that Finn could look him in the eye.

They kissed, and it was… Poe had found that kisses in dreams were hardly ever comfortable, and that kiss was no exception. Poe was hyperaware of it even as Finn seemed to lose himself in it. The pressure building between them, though—that Poe could easily fall into. He arched his back as Finn rolled up into him, gasping as Finn held him and repeated the motions over and over and over. Poe woke from that dream sweating and uncomfortably hard. Thankfully, it was late—or, really, early—and no one was using the ‘fresher at the end of the hall.

It made visiting Finn almost unbearable because this was _Finn_ , ex-stormtrooper, skittish and more than a little prone to panic but willing to stand up for his friends and his values nonetheless. Finn, a genuinely good person. Finn, his _friend_.

Poe had to swallow that word down. They were _friends_.

(Poe had never disliked the concept so much as he did when he came face-to-face with Finn, whose face brightened to see him, who looked at him like he was made of the stuff of stars. He wanted to be, for Finn.)

* * *

Poe continued to stop by the medbay each day to see Finn. It was the one constant for each of them. As Allessr and Mikkup got Finn moving and exercising to ensure that the prosthesis didn’t kill him if he jerked in a certain way and General Organa dropped by at intervals to get Finn’s perspective on matters regarding the First Order, and as Poe got more and more creative with his modifications, their meetings were the only common ground from day to day.

Except. Finn couldn’t help but notice: lately, as Poe came to see him, he looked _terrible_.

Not that he—Finn wasn’t actually sure if Poe could ever look physically bad. Finn thought Poe looked terrible because of something in his face: it was the way that Poe couldn’t meet his eyes, and the way he shuffled as he walked, and the distracted way in which he talked. Something had happened, Finn guessed. Something terrible. Poe looked like he’d been sentenced to death.

It didn’t help that every time Finn locked eyes with Poe—coincidentally, every time Finn meant to finally ask what was the matter—a sharp, biting heat pooled in his belly. He knew what that meant—‘troopers were kept masked and covered to improve coordination on the battlefield and to minimize fraternization, but things happened. It had never happened to him, but _now_ —

What he wouldn’t have done for a helmet.

Finn never knew where to look when faced with Poe, sure his attraction was written across his face in enormous neon letters. It was _embarrassing_. It was almost, Finn thought, like conditioning: medbay doors open invariably resulted in elevated heart rate in anticipation of Poe’s arrival. Eye contact with Poe Dameron lead to uncontrollable sexual arousal. These were the truths of Finn’s life now.

It almost made Finn thankful for Poe’s odd behavior, as Poe hadn’t noticed Finn’s blatant attraction yet.

Almost.

* * *

“General Organa.”

It was Jess again. General Organa had been seeing more and more of the young pilot lately. Part of that was because she’d taken over Poe’s jobs for the time being—General Organa was still monitoring Poe, albeit from a distance. He seemed to be making a recovery, both physical and mental, though the latter lagged.

That, of course, was the other reason why General Organa had suddenly started seeing so much of Jess in particular: she was also watching Poe, and closely at that. She reported everything down to what he ate, something General Organa found a bit much, but Jess could not be deterred. _A rigorous analysis_ , she said. General Organa found herself reminded that Jess had been planning to go into astrophysical engineering before she finally decided to turn her love of flying into a lifestyle.

Now, Jess had caught up to her in a service hallway after returning from a supply run. General Organa had been hoping to escape, to ignore her and everyone else to go somewhere quiet to nurse the headache that had been lodged in her temple for weeks. She felt something—something she hadn’t felt in decades.

Not since Vader.

She wasn’t entirely willing to chalk it up to her imagination and a distinct lack of rest, but she wanted to. It had been months upon months of fighting and negotiating and moving. She found it very trying, but not so much to suspect that her feelings betrayed her. Something was amiss.

“Pava,” General Organa said finally.

Jess snapped to attention smartly. “General,” she repeated, “our most recent run to Dantooine was a success.”

“Dantooine?” General Organa asked. She remembered authorizing the mission, but… Her mind was becoming hazy. Between dreams of Han— _oh, Han_ , so close and so far away—and the ever-present threat posed by the First Order, everything was just a little off kilter.

“Yes, General,” Jess said. “We collected kyber crystals from one of the mines. The First Order appears to have beaten us to the source, but we managed to grab a few that had been left behind. We wrapped them, just like you said. No one’s touched them.”

“Save two,” General Organa said. “Don’t open them up. The rest I want outfitted to our cruisers. They’ll provide the power we need to get our biggest starships mobile again.”

Just one more reason why having Finn around had proved beneficial. In their numerous conversations over the past few weeks, General Organa had learned that the First Order powered their largest ships with kyber crystals. It was, she had to admit, a stroke of genius. Their commanders were as sharp, if not sharper, than those of the Empire that had birthed them.

“And, General,” Jess said, “about Poe…”

There was her headache, back again. “Is it important?” General Organa asked.

“I’m afraid so,” Jess said. She swallowed. “He’s…more out of sorts than usual. Temmin’s said he hears Poe cursing at himself at night when he thinks everyone’s asleep. He looks like a wreck. And…”

“And?”

Jess made a face. “According to Allessr, Poe’s been acting strangely in the medbay. There’s something weird with him and Finn. None of the medics can stand to be around when they’re together.”

General Organa blinked. Jess was still standing there, stony-faced and serious.

“Is this relevant?” General Organa asked.

Jess grimaced. “General, the medics can’t stay there because they become physically ill from proximity alone. They all say they’ve got headaches, stomach aches, and nausea.”

“And it’s only when they’re together in the medbay,” General Organa said slowly.

Jess colored as if aware of how silly her report sounded. “Yes, General.”

Not for the first time, General Organa wished for a stiff drink and some time off. Instead, she was faced with the reality that she needed to talk to Finn— _talk_ to him, not just listen as he spoke of the First Order—but to talk to him, and probably to Poe as well.

General Organa wished Han alive, too. He’d laugh at her— _a couple of love-drunk idiots and the Force_ , he’d say, _what could go wrong?_

That was how he’d described the two of them when they’d gotten married. The answer, of course, was _a lot of things, you big buffoon_.

* * *

 _You have to do this_ , Finn told himself. _Get some backbone_ —he laughed at himself, just a little— _and fess up. It can’t be worse than admitting you weren’t with the Resistance. Come on, you’ve fought_ Kylo Ren _, you can tell Poe that the Force is…doing things. Tell him about the thing with the Force, and how you would very much like to break whatever fraternization regulations the Resistance has with him._

Finn scowled at his legs and frowned. Poe hadn’t come to visit yet, and it was getting dark. Poe always came to visit. Finn could sense—and wasn’t that just _terrifying_ —he could _sense_ Poe, though he was muted and distant. Finn didn’t like it. He wanted to lay eyes on him to see what was wrong, if anything. He wanted to tell the truth and see Poe either accept it or walk away so that he could do the same.

He flexed his back. He hardly felt the prosthesis anymore. Allessr—Finn liked them a lot better than Mikkup, who always looked at Finn like he was something sour—had told him that he could leave tomorrow morning. Finn was looking forward to the fresh air. He’d see the trees, and the sky. He’d be able to _do_ something rather than wait for Poe or General Organa to come by.

 _Poe_. Finn frowned again, hunching over. His back twinged, but that was the extent of the physical pain. Had he done something to scare Poe away? Had he found out? Had he guessed that Finn had the Force and minimal control? Poe didn’t have good experiences with the Force—to put it mildly. Finn was in the process of spiraling into anxiety when Poe arrived.

“Hey, buddy,” Poe said.

Finn nearly jumped out of his skin. “Oh,” he said. _Elevated heart rate, uncontrolled attraction_. Finn willed himself to get it together.

“Sorry,” Poe said, coming closer. He felt for his chair as if unsure of his footing and nearly collapsed into it. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Poe was even stranger than usual, but it didn’t take Finn more than a few seconds to figure out why: Poe had been drinking. His eyes were bloodshot and he smelled like the floor of Maz Kanata’s bar.

“Poe,” Finn said, “you shouldn’t be here.”

“No?” Poe asked. “I needed to come see you. It’s important.”

“You’re drunk,” Finn said.

Poe smiled. It wasn’t the smile Finn knew. It wasn’t sincere or genuine, and it chilled him. It was _wrong_.

“Yeah,” Poe said. “Needed to get up my courage.”

“Poe,” Finn said. Poe leaned forward, wobbling slightly. “ _Poe_.”

“That’s me,” Poe said.

“Yes, that’s you, now you need to leave,” Finn said.

Poe had the audacity to pout. “No,” he said. “Got something I need to tell you.”

Finn had never been drunk, but he’d seen officers drunk and civilians drunk and just about everyone except other ‘troopers drunk. All of it told him that drunk people tended to say things they didn’t mean to say—true things, often, but secret things.

Judging from the desperate look in Poe’s eyes now that he was closer—and oh, but his breath was _rank_ —this was something secret. _Needed to get up my courage_ , that’s what Poe had said.

“You can tell me in the morning,” Finn said. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and checked his surroundings. No one else was in the medbay at the moment—there was a shift change soon, and new supplies had just come in. Since Finn no longer needed around-the-clock care, he’d been left by himself. He could get Poe out.

“Come on,” Finn said.

“You allowed to leave?” Poe asked, incredulous. Finn stood, towering over Poe as he remained seated.

“Sure,” Finn lied. “Let me help you get to bed.”

Something odd happened to Poe’s eyes—his pupils dilated as if he were terrified, and his breathing quickened. Finn froze, unsure of what he’d done wrong.

“Yes—or, no,” Poe said. “No, not yet, I haven’t told you anything yet.”

“Tell me in the morning.”

“I’m not letting you take me to bed,” Poe said, face flushed with alcohol, “until I talk to you.”

“Letting me—” _Oh_. Finn felt his blood rushing to all of the wrong places. “No, no, that’s not a thing we’re doing. You’re drunk. You’re going to _go to sleep_.”

Poe pouted again. “I’m not leaving.”

Finn stared at him. He guessed that he could carry Poe if it came to that, but everything would be much easier if Poe would simply cooperate.

“Listen,” Finn said, “I need you to do this for me, okay?”

“Need me to… Anything,” Poe said, breathless and wide-eyed. Finn wondered just how much he’d had to drink. “Whatever you need, I’ve got it.”

“Good, good. Listen, we’re going to compromise, okay? You’re going to wait until morning to tell me anything—” Poe made to interrupt, but Finn pressed on— “and you get to stay here for the night. Okay?”

Poe nodded too fast and blinked rapidly, no doubt dizzy.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

Finn helped him get up onto the medbay bed beside his own. Poe stared at him for several long moments, then opened his mouth.

“Morning, Poe,” Finn said. “Tell me in the morning. I need you to wait until morning.”

“Until morning,” Poe repeated. “If you say so. Don’t know if I’ll be brave enough.”

 _One of us will be_ , Finn thought, miserable. He was quick to shut down the thought—if he could affect Poe with the Force, then he risked making Poe agitated. He tried to clear his mind instead. He thought about carefully regimented days, how he’d been trained to dissemble and reassemble a variety of blasters and heavy weaponry. He thought of clean lines of troops and tall trees and silent mornings.

Across from him, Poe fell asleep. Finn hoped it was because he was drunk and tired rather than because Finn had made it so.

* * *

Poe woke disoriented and feeling like he’d rubbed his face across the floor of a particularly grungy cantina. Something was beeping. Poe swatted where he thought his alarm might be but came up with empty air.

He opened his eyes and regretted it immediately, shutting them again. _Not his room_.

Poe cursed. His vocal chords felt as if they were caked with something, and it felt odd to speak. He didn’t remember going home with anyone, but he wouldn’t put it past himself. He’d been getting up the courage to talk to Finn.

 _Finn_. Poe thought he’d seen him, last night, but he probably hadn’t. If someone had brought him back—

Poe rolled over and nearly toppled off of the bed. It was a small affair, and there was no one behind him, which meant—

Poe opened his eyes all of the way. Medbay. Finn.

 _Finn_. Poe’s mouth went dry.

Poe had seen a lot of things on a lot of planets, and he’d _done_ a lot of things on a lot of planets, generally involving one or two others interested in _doing_ the same sorts of things. For all of that decadence and experience, Poe found that he’d never seen anything quite like what he was looking at now—admittedly because it was Finn and not some stranger Poe would likely never meet again, but _still._

There wasn’t a word strong enough to describe it.

Finn was doing pushups. He had trousers, _thank the Force_ , not that Poe wanted General Organa _anywhere near this_ right now. He was, however, sans shirt. He was sweating, breathing hard as he pushed himself up and slowly went back down. His form was perfect.

Poe had a feeling his dreams were about to get _a lot_ more detailed, something which he very much did not need.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

Poe drew his eyes away from Finn’s back—his prothesis aside, no one had a right to have muscles even _half_ that well-toned—to look him in the face. Finn was staring at him—worse, Finn had _caught_ him staring.

Poe toppled all of the way off of the bed and landed squarely on his nose. He cursed as he sat up, and in moments Finn was at his side.

“Are you all right?” Finn asked, eyes wide.

“M’fine,” Poe said. His nose _hurt_ , but it had sustained far worse. “It’s not bleeding.” He didn’t know that for a fact, but it didn’t feel like it should be. He hadn’t fallen that far. “Are you— You’re up!”

“Yeah,” Finn said. “They told me this morning I can leave.”

“That’s great!” Poe’s voice came out strangely. “What are you doing sticking around here, then? We’ve got great training rooms.”

Finn shook his head. “I was waiting for you to wake up. You did _not_ look so good last night. What were you drinking, anyway?”

 _Last night_. Poe did his best not to led his absolute horror show on his face.

“Last night,” Poe echoed. “Can’t even remember what I had. Yeah, I got pretty smashed, didn’t I?”

“Is that what you call being knock-down drunk?” Finn asked.

“Knock-down… Is that a First Order thing?” Poe asked.

Finn shrugged. “Officers are the only ones with alcohol. They get so drunk you can knock them right down and because they don’t remember in the morning, you get away with it. Me and my squadron bowled with a few officers once—used them as the pins.”

Poe grinned. “You liar.”

Finn’s eyes twinkled as he said, “That is the absolute truth.”

Poe swatted at him, then realized their position: Finn crouched over him, supporting Poe’s back as Poe lay against Finn on the floor. Finn’s chest was _very_ close to Poe’s face. Poe cleared his throat and made to stand. Finn took a few steps away.

“You all right?” Finn asked.

“Yeah,” Poe said, “getting better all the time.”

Finn looked like he wanted to say something else—Poe prayed to his mother’s ashes that he hadn’t shot his mouth off while intoxicated and said something they would have to talk about—but the medbay doors opened.

“Finn,” General Organa said. She cast her eyes over Poe, one eyebrow going straight up. At least he wasn’t _on_ the floor anymore. “I hear you’ve been released.”

Finn’s entire posture changed—he went rigid, straightening himself to full height. Poe wondered if he knew he was doing it.

“General,” Finn said. “Yes, ma’am, I was released this morning.”

“Good,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you—privately. 1100 sharp. Poe’ll take you to get some clothes.”

She was gone before Finn could say anything. Poe exhaled—that was as close as General Organa had come to so much as addressing him since she’d grounded him. Half of him was relieved—he had a miserably bad headache and smelled terrible. When he was finally cleared to return to service, he intended to look presentable.

“Poe?” Finn asked, voice small. “She didn’t tell me where to find her and I don’t know what time it is.”

Poe laughed, the sound hurting his own ears. “Come on, buddy,” he said, “let’s get you some clothes.”

* * *

Finn had never considered himself a particularly large man. Still, the shirt and pants that Poe had gotten for him seemed a little tight, more like underclothes for armor than regular clothes.

“Are you sure?” Finn asked. He looked down at himself. Poe eyed him appraisingly, too. They stood in Poe’s quarters—a little room with a tiny window at the top of one wall. It _smelled_ like Poe, something Finn absolutely could not think of for too long.

“They’ll stretch,” Poe said. “If my jacket fit you, my clothes will, too.”

Finn’s breathing stopped. “These are—”

“Sure,” Poe said. “Can’t let you walk around in a hospital gown, can I?”

“But, these are _yours_ ,” Finn said.

“I mean, we’ll get you some of your very own on our next supply run—don’t know why they weren’t on the list to begin with, anyway, but I’ll make sure they are—but mine fit you well enough, don’t you think?”

Finn had several thoughts, but what came out was, “Yeah, thank you,” and nothing more than that.

* * *

Poe took Finn up to the roof—once again, General Organa’s preferred meeting spot—then made himself scarce.

Giving Finn a few articles of his own clothing had been simultaneously the best and worst decision of his life. On the one hand, that was a thing friends, did, right? They shared things? On the other, he’d now seen Finn in his clothes—not just his jacket, but an entire outfit. He’d worn a shirt and trousers that Poe knew had touched his own skin. He winced at the thought. It was sappy and gross in several different ways. He had no business being such a creep. 

Not to mention that the previous evening’s activities were coming back to him. He’d almost told Finn—thankfully, Finn had stopped him, aware that something was wrong. At least one of them had a brain to work with.

 _Pull it together, Dameron_ , Poe thought to himself. He had to get his feelings in check. Never mind what he thought about Finn—never mind that more than a great body he was a great _person_ and Poe wanted to know everything about him. The odds of reciprocity were low, and Poe had never been too good at accepting rejection. He tended to skulk like a kicked puppy and he knew it.

He barricaded himself in the ‘fresher and didn’t come out until he no longer smelled like he’d bathed in beer, all the while cursing himself and his moronic attempt to screw his courage to the sticking-place. All he’d managed to do was screw up.

* * *

“General,” Finn said, voice tight.

“At ease, Finn,” General Organa said. “I’m not Captain Phasma.”

It was a conversation they’d had before, though Finn never quite internalized the notion. Of course she wasn’t the Captain—Phasma could never be anyone other than Phasma. Still, General Organa was a _general_. She deserved more respect than a slouched posture and anything less than perfection. She was running the Resistance.

“How are you feeling?” General Organa asked. “Mikkup and Allessr have kept me informed of your condition, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

“I feel great, General,” Finn said, nodding. “I hardly know the prosthesis is there.”

“That’s good,” General Organa said. “That’s good. Anything else?”

“No, ma’am,” Finn said. “I feel well.”

General Organa didn’t look convinced.

“Finn, I’d like to talk to you,” she said. Finn frowned. He’d thought that they were already talking, but then she started to sit down. Finn instinctively reached out to help her so she didn’t fall backwards. She fixed him with a glare for his efforts, so he went to sit by himself across from her.

“Medbay reports tell me there’s more to you than meets the eye,” General Organa said. It didn’t sound like an invitation to speak, so Finn held his tongue. “Do you remember when Poe crashed?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Finn said.

“You told me you saw something.”

Finn winced. “Yes, ma’am,” he repeated. General Organa waited. “I saw—colors, General. I didn’t—I still don’t—understand it.”

“So you still see them,” General Organa said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Tell me about them.”

Finn opened his mouth then shut it, aware that General Organa watched him closely. “Ma’am?” he asked.

“Describe them to me,” she said. “What do you see in me?”

Finn took in a deep breath. No sense lying now. She didn’t seem to find it abnormal that he’d started _seeing_ things that weren’t there, so he decided that if there was any harm in it, she’d be more inclined to help than hurt.

“Blue,” Finn said. “Dark. There’s the bridge at the oscillator on Starkiller, with Kylo Ren and…” Finn couldn’t bring himself to finish it.

“Han,” General Organa said. “What about now?”

Finn frowned, then looked again. “Blue,” he said, “but— It’s light. Happy. Mountains and a city.”

“Alderaan,” General Organa murmured. Finn cocked his head.

“General, what is it?” Finn asked. “What am I seeing?”

General Organa shook her head. “I hardly know myself,” she said. “I was never formally trained in the ways of the Force as my brother was.”

“You were— You’re a Jedi?” Finn asked.

“No,” General Organa said, “but I stand firmly with the Light.”

“Your brother is Luke Skywalker.”

General Organa smiled. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him,” she said. “You remind me of him. He was so excited to learn about the Force. It changed the course of his life.”

Finn could hardly breathe. “This is the Force,” Finn said, the revelation spoken aloud hitting him harder than a blaster at point blank range. “I mean, I thought it was, but… _This is the Force_.”

The General’s smile grew. “Yes, Finn,” she said. “The colors that you’re seeing are aspects of people. I learned a long time ago that I appear in the Force as blue.”

“I’m purple,” Finn said. General Organa nodded. “And Poe’s red.”

Something twisted on her face. “Yes,” she said, “he is.”

“General, there’s something—” Finn cut himself off, swallowing. “There’s something I’d like to ask you about.”

“Of course,” she said.

“I’m… I know things about Poe,” he said, “before he comes to tell me. I know when he’s working on the engines and when he’s gone to eat with his friends and when he goes for a swim. I _feel_ it, and I don’t know how to stop it.”

General Organa sighed deeply and stared up at the sky. It was a clear day—the sky was a brilliant blue with only a few clouds, one of them a strange orange thing that moved faster than the rest. Finn felt a breeze and the warmth of a sun. He felt free.

“I was never trained in the Force,” General Organa said finally. “However, I’ve been living with it for many years now. I know a few things, and what you just described to me is something I know quite well firsthand.”

Finn waited. General Organa seemed to be composing herself.

“When I married Han, I was so afraid—I thought that I’d tricked him somehow,” she said. “It was the end of the war, and I’d only just learned that I had power over the Force. It was a difficult time for me. I wondered just how many of my achievements had been my own. Worse, though, I found that I knew everything about Han—what he did, where he was going, who he was with.” She smiled. “He didn’t take it too well, if we’re being honest.

“From what Luke told me, it’s something called a Force Bond. In the days of the Republic, when the Jedi Order yet stood, masters and their apprentices used to foster bonds between each other. It was seen as a dedication to the path of the Light, and a promise between pairs to defend and protect. They were amongst the only attachments Jedi could form.

“Of course, for two Jedi, the Bond worked both ways—they were both aware of each other. But for a Jedi and someone else—someone not sensitive to the Force—it only worked one way. I think that was the part that Han didn’t like. I knew all that he did, but he didn’t have the same knowledge. That, coupled with our son…” She shook her head. “But the past is past. May the Force rest Han’s soul.”

General Organa looked straight at Finn, who found that he couldn’t look away.

“I believe,” she said, “that Poe matters to you—so much so that you’ve formed a Force Bond with him. I think it started when you met, but it solidified when he crashed and you woke up. You panicked because you felt his pain through it as if it were your own. Now, you’re constantly aware of him.”

Finn ducked his head. “Ma’am, I… How do I stop it?”

“Stop it?” she asked. “Why?”

“Because,” he started, “I feel like I’m spying on him. I don’t want him to feel…” Finn trailed off, biting his lips. “Poe means a lot to me,” he said. “I didn’t have a name. I had one job—serve the First Order—and without that, I had nothing. He gave me a purpose. He brought me here, and he’s stayed with me ever since.”

“You don’t want to lose him like I lost Han,” General Organa said.

“No, that’s not—” Finn started, panicking.

“Don’t fret,” General Organa said, “I know. As far as I’m aware, it’s impossible to sever the Bond. Even Vader, for all his power, couldn’t fully cut himself off from his old master.”

Finn exhaled. So it was hopeless.

“That being said, you should talk to Poe. Tell him about this.”

“Every time I try, I find I can’t,” Finn said. “If he knew how I felt, he’d be disgusted.”

“How do you feel, Finn?”

The question took the air out of Finn’s lungs. He looked at her desperately.

“Oh,” she said, voice oddly bland, “you love him, don’t you?”

“No, I—” He swallowed, mouth working impossibly fast. “Or, it’s not— I can’t help it,” Finn said quickly. “He’s just—he’s _perfect_. I’ve never, _never_ …” He swallowed. “I’m sorry. It’s entirely inappropriate. I don’t really know what love feels like, anyway.”

General Organa shook her head. “No,” she said, “there’s no need to apologize. The Resistance has no hard and fast rules about relationships within the ranks.” She paused, then asked, “Have you told Poe about this?”

Finn felt his face go hot. “No, ma’am,” he said. “I haven’t. I haven’t told him anything.”

“You ought to consider it,” General Organa said. “Poe tends to play fast and loose with his well-being.”

“Are you saying that if I tell him I love him, he’ll be safer?” Finn asked, incredulous. The entire conversation seemed impossible to him even as it was transpiring.

Something dark crossed General Organa’s face. Finn caught sight of that dark blue just for a moment—the bridge. Finn swallowed, knowing what was coming before she even said it.

“No,” General Organa said—gently, Finn thought. “I’m saying you should tell him while you still can.”


	4. Chapter 4

Poe checked inventory just to have something to do. The thought of continuing to work endlessly on his X-wing felt silly, particularly since he’d just gotten clean, but there was little else for him to do. He couldn’t go to the medbay—Finn wasn’t there, and there were no patients to be seen. While there was nothing for him to get in the way of, he’d be no help. The kitchen staff didn’t want him around—Poe could mess up dry rations, and that was saying something. He had a gift for cooking real food, though, not that the Resistance had the foodstuffs or the desire for his particular dishes. It seemed that only General Organa had an appreciation for the smell of sizzling plantains or the taste for fresh, hot tamales. The one time Poe did get to cook like that—it was early on, long before the First Order brought out their big guns, when Kylo Ren had yet to take the field and pilots could brag that he was a wannabe Vader with no real power. (Oh, how wrong they’d been.) Poe had cooked, and everyone had been in agony all through the night except for General Organa, who’d slept like the dead with a smile on her face.

That had been so long ago, Poe hardly remembered. He wasn’t sure he’d still be able to cook. A lot of it was intuition and muscle memory, but those were muscles he hadn’t flexed in months—no, years. It made Poe sad to think of it.

He didn’t have to consider it for long, though. Poe had just set aside two wrapped kybers crystal according to General Organa’s instructions as relayed through Jess, who was working across the room, when Finn arrived.

Poe didn’t see him—he wasn’t exactly sure how he knew, except that he did. He felt warm, and safe, and— _pull it together, Dameron_.

“Poe,” Finn said. He was sweating bullets. Poe hadn’t seen him this terrified since they’d fled the Order—or, no, not since he’d woken up following the crash.

“What’s wrong?” Poe asked, setting the crystals down. Across the room, he was aware of Jess watching the both of them. “Are you okay? Is it—”

Finn held up both hands and took in a sharp breath. “I have to talk to you,” he said.

“Okay,” Poe said slowly. “Jess, can you…?”

“Sure, Poe,” Jess said. “Just leave them there, okay?”

Poe stepped away from the crate, and Finn moved with him.

“Where to?” Poe asked. Finn looked miserable. Poe couldn’t imagine why. “Buddy?”

“Uh, somewhere—private,” Finn said.

“Let’s head out,” Poe said, glancing once more at Jess, who was almost certainly eavesdropping. “This way.”

Poe led Finn away from the stores and outside. They walked across the tarmac—Poe noticed that five X-wings were out, none of them his. _Blue Squadron_ , he thought. He wondered where they’d gone and what they were doing. He envied them—

Finn snagged his hand. Poe’s blood pressure dropped so fast out of shock that he nearly collapsed.

“Sorry,” Finn said, yanking his hand away. “I forgot—I should have asked.”

Poe sensed a story, but instead he said, “It’s fine.” That he managed to get out those couple of syllables without his voice cracking was a small miracle in and of itself.

That Finn took his hand again was yet another.

Finn and Poe found themselves in the trees. They weren’t like the ones on D’Qar—these had much darker trunks and leaves that were closer to blue than green. At night, they fluoresced a brilliant white. Poe sank down against the base of one and gestured for Finn to do the same. They sat across from each other, Finn staring at Poe.

“So,” Poe said, licking his lips. “Is everything all right? You looked a little sick back there.”

“It’s fine— This is fine,” Finn said, looking around. “This is good.”

“Finn?” Poe asked. “I’m a little nervous, buddy.”

“I, uh…” Finn stumbled over how to begin.

“Is this about what the General had to say to you?” Poe asked.

Finn froze, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s— Poe, I’m so sorry. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have—”

“Woah, slow down, buddy,” Poe said. _If Finn had known what?_ “What’s the matter?”

Finn leaned back, an agonized look on his face. “I’ve never done this before,” Finn said. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Poe laughed. Finn glared at him, though it lacked real heat. “First time for everything?” Poe offered.

Finn looked uneasy. “Here goes, then,” he said. “I… You know, I don’t even know where to start? There’s just so much.” He ran a hand across his hair—still short even after all these months. Poe remembered what the medics said, about how it seemed he’d somehow managed to go into stasis.

“Poe, I’m— I’ve got the Force,” Finn said.

Poe laughed again. “Of course you do,” he said. “You’re alive, aren’t you? The Force is in everything.”

Finn shook his head and repeated, “I’ve got the Force.”

Poe felt the blood draining from his face very, very slowly.

“Oh,” he said. He forced himself to brighten his tone. “That’s— That’s great, Finn!”

Finn took a deep breath and said, “There’s a lot more. There’s something called a Force Bond. It’s some kind of Jedi link thing—you bond with a person, and you can feel their emotions, sort of know what they’re doing—not really detailed, or anything, but it’s a _lot_ and it’s _constant_ —”

“Hold on,” Poe said. Finn looked at him, beseeching. “You’ve formed a Force Bond or whatever with someone.”

“Yeah,” Finn said.

Poe forced himself to grin even as his stomach sank. “That must mean you really like the person, right? Or you’re really close to them. Who is it? Tell me it’s not Mikkup. I don’t think they like me very much—”

“It’s you.”

“—and Allessr’s so skittish— _Wait_.”

“It’s you,” Finn repeated. “I didn’t know rightly what it was until today, but—Poe, I’m so sorry. I know you didn’t mean for this to happen, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

Poe stared at Finn for several long moments. His ears were ringing. Had he heard Finn right? There was no way…

“Me,” Poe said. “You…made some sort of Force thing…with me.”

Finn nodded, clearly miserable.

“Oh,” Poe said. _Oh_. “Well, that’s. Finn. I didn’t know you…”

“I’m sorry,” Finn said.

Poe had never been one for subtlety. “Why?” he asked.

“Why?”

“Why are you sorry?”

Finn still wouldn’t look up. “Because it’s an invasion of privacy,” Finn said. “Because I can’t control it, and I know you probably don’t like the Force very much after what happened to you, and I don’t know how to get rid of it.” Finn took in a very deep breath, then blurted, “And also because I think I love you and I think that’s why the Force Bond formed in the first place and I’m so, so sorry.”

It got very, very quiet.

* * *

Finn thought he might fall over, or pass out, or both. He felt sick in his stomach and sick in his head and _why had he thought that was a good idea_ he should have just ignored General Organa and gone on with his business and never told anyone and—

A hand on his shoulder had him jumping.

“Finn,” Poe said. When had he gotten so close? “It’s all right, take a deep breath…”

Finn wanted to say that he was breathing just fine, but he felt a little lightheaded and his chest was tight and _oh_ , he hadn’t been breathing. He took in a sharp breath, coughed, and tried again. Poe clapped him on the shoulder, as if that would help, then took a step back from him to crouch in front of him.

“I lost you there for a second,” Poe said. He was staring very determinedly at Finn. Finn was too afraid to look away. “How long have you been sitting on that one?”

“Sitting on what?” Finn asked, confused by the expression.

Poe shook his head and sat all of the way down. “I mean, how long have you felt that way?” Poe asked. “I mean, that’s not really a fair question—you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but…”

Finn wasn’t having any of that. He’d made this mess, and he’d clean it up.

“I don’t know,” Finn said. “I think—in the medbay. Early,” Finn said, “soon after I woke up. You kept coming to visit me. You’d _been_ coming every day.”

“Every day,” Poe said. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“Why?” Finn asked. “I mean, I got you out, I get that, but you don’t need to feel like you owe me something—”

“Woah, woah, I owe you a lot, Finn,” Poe said. “You didn’t just get me out. Do you have any idea what you’ve done for the Resistance? You’ve given us a fighting chance! We can win this!”

Finn smiled sadly. “I thought that might be it,” he said.

“Well, sure,” Poe said. Finn stood up. To have Poe say it to his face stung, but what was he going to do? Of course Poe had come to visit because he felt indebted to Finn. It hadn’t been friendship—not exactly.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“You don’t have to pretend anymore,” Finn said. “Whatever debt you owed me is paid, okay? Just forget about this whole conversation.”

Poe shot up after him. “What are you talking about?” Poe said. “What about the whole— Finn!”

Finn couldn’t meet Poe’s eyes.

“Look, something happened and I don’t know what it is,” Poe said, “because two minutes ago you said you loved me and now you’re leaving. What did I do?”

Finn swallowed. Why had he said that? Why, why, why…

“You said you came to visit me in the medbay because you felt you owed me a debt,” Finn said, staring resolutely away from Poe. “And I get that, I do, but I just—”

“Oh, _Finn_. That’s not it at all.”

“I told you, you don’t have to pretend. It’s okay. I’ll be okay. I’ll get over it, I’ll—”

Poe snagged one of Finn’s hands and squeezed it.

“I think,” Poe said, “we just had two very different conversations.”

Finn took a deep breath. He hadn’t thought it could get worse; this was much, much worse.

“Finn—”

“I’m sorry,” Finn said. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I love you too, you know.”

* * *

Poe let the words slip out, sure they were the only thing that could stop Finn from marching back to base alone.

Every day. Poe had visited every day, hoping for Finn to wake up, then waiting for him to be discharged. He’d fallen in love with him, with the way he talked and the way he thought about things and just _him_. The Force Bond stuff was weird, but Poe knew weird. He’d survived weirder, and this was Finn. Finn wouldn’t hurt him. Finn was not Kylo Ren and never would be.

“I love you,” Poe repeated, “and I’m not saying that because I owe you anything, and I didn’t come visit you because I thought I owed you anything, either. I _do_ owe you a debt—a life debt, a big one—but I came to see you because I wanted to. I was being selfish. I wanted to see you, keep you close. Finn…”

Finn turned toward him. He looked afraid and hopeful and Poe wanted to kiss him but until they had the basics ironed out he thought it would probably be a bad idea.

“Can we go back and sit down?” Poe asked. Finn nodded, and Poe led him back to the trees. They sat side by side this time, leaning against the same trunk. Finn was warm next to Poe, solid and everything he’d been hoping for.

“When I got drunk,” Poe said, “I was trying to get up the courage to tell you. I felt guilty loving you— _wanting_ you the way I want you and I do, I—” he took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair— “I didn’t know how to tell you, so I figured I’d drink and it would come out one way or another and I’d be too drunk to remember your rejection.”

“You thought I’d say no?” Finn asked.

“I was sure. Or, if you said yes, that you wouldn’t mean it,” Poe admitted. “You’re—do you even know what you have? Half of the base is clamoring to meet you. You’re their hero.”

“You gave me a name,” Finn said.

“That’s generally not boyfriend territory,” Poe admitted.

Finn laughed. “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” he said. “‘Troopers only have numbers, you know? But if you get friends—people who care about you—they give you nicknames. There were a couple of guys in my squadron—Slip, Zeroes, Nines. They had names.”

“And you?”

“FN-2187.”

Poe shifted beside him. “They didn’t give you a…?”

“No,” Finn said. “They didn’t. I was always a little different. They didn’t like me too much. They called me Eight-Seven once. Not really the same, you know?”

Poe took one of Finn’s hands and squeezed it.

“There’s something,” Finn said, so low Poe thought he might have misheard, “I’m afraid of now.”

“What is it?”

“What if,” Finn started, then stopped. He tried again: “What if this is my fault?”

“Finn—”

“The Force can make people do things,” Finn said. “Feel things. “What if I…? To you…?”

“You think the Force Bond or whatever made me fall in love with you,” Poe said.

Finn started, “If it did—”

“Then it would be one of the best things that’s happened to me,” Poe said. Finn froze beside him, but Poe pressed on. “You make me feel good, Finn. I like seeing you smile. I like hearing what you have to say. You listen to me, and you… If I hadn’t had you these last couple of weeks, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“Poe…”

“I mean it.”

Finn whispered, “I know you do.”

“Finn?” Poe asked. “Can I…?”

He reached to cup Finn’s face. The angle was awkward, but Finn pulled Poe into his lap and _oh_ , that was better.

Poe pressed his lips to Finn’s gently in the chastest of kisses, his hand still on Finn’s jaw. Finn interlaced their fingers and brought his other hand up to the back of Poe’s neck. They parted soon after, staring at each other.

“Again?” Finn asked, eyes hopeful.

While it was obvious enough to Poe that Finn had never been kissed before, he was, Poe found, a very quick learner.

* * *

They left the woods and headed back to base, holding hands and looking tentatively at each other.

Finn had absolutely no idea what to say or do. He was so far out of his depth. He wanted some kind of instruction, some guide for how to proceed from here. Normally, he’d ask Poe, but Poe _was_ what he needed a guide _for_.

“You’re worrying,” Poe murmured in his ear. Finn shivered. “You don’t have to.”

“I know,” Finn said. (He didn’t know. He didn’t know much of anything at all.) “It’s just—new.”

Poe squeezed his hand tighter. “Just let me know if we’re going too fast.”

 _We’re in hyperspace_ , Finn wanted to say, _and I don’t know how to steer_.

“Poe!”

Both Finn and Poe jumped at the sound of his name. There was a woman crossing the hangar—Finn didn’t know her name.

“Oh, great timing!” Poe said. “Finn, this is Jessika Pava. She’s one of the pilots in my squadron. Great flier. Hey Jess!”

Jess was breathing hard as she approached. “Hi there, Finn,” she said. “Nice to meet you, for real this time.” She looked at their linked hands. “Well, Temmin owes me twenty.”

Finn colored. They’d placed bets, on—?

“Jess,” Poe said. There was an edge to his voice, something Finn hadn’t heard out of Poe before. He was warning her.

Jess put up both hands. “Sorry,” she said. “True though.” Poe’s grip tightened on Finn’s hand, and Finn squeezed back. He wanted to melt through the floor.

“You come over here just to put us in the spotlight or what?” Poe asked.

“No,” Jess said, “General wants you in ten. Something big’s going down.”

* * *

The war room was packed. Admirals Statura and Ackbar stood with General Organa. Finn read concern on each of their faces. Poe squeezed his hand, possibly in reassurance, and led him around to one side of the holotable. Projected above it was a system: one sun, three planets, and what appeared to be five moons, all spinning contentedly in orbit.

After a few others shuffled into the room, General Organa saw fit to begin.

“We’ve received a communication from Rey and Luke to the effect that the First Order navy was amassing in a nearby system,” General Organa said. “It appears that the Order hasn’t found them yet, but they’re grouping around Neerdia. Blue squadron was dispatched to survey the forces. The Order has five Star Destroyers and something else entirely—one massive ship.”

The holotable lit up, and a vessel—bigger than the _Finalizer_ or any other _Resurgent_ class ship Finn had ever seen in person—appeared.

“ _Dreadnought_ ,” Finn said, the word slipping out.

General Organa’s eyes landed on him. “Finn, do you know something about this?”

Finn straightened, feeling the eyes of officers and pilots alike on him. Poe still hadn’t let go of his hand.

“Not personally,” he said. “When I was there, it wasn’t completed yet. My squadron was one of the many that was meant to man that ship. It’s weapons are supposed to be something else.”

“Why is this the first we’re hearing about this?” someone called. Finn didn’t recognize the face, but he wouldn’t forget it.

“Finn was just released from medbay,” Poe said. “You should be grateful he’s here at all.”

Admiral Ackbar put up a hand. “Peace,” he said. “Finn, do you know anything about stopping it?”

Finn shook his head. “No,” he said. “All details were for officers’ eyes only. Holovids that were shown daily just said that it and Starkiller would be the tools with which the galaxy was brought to heel. Since I was part of ground forces, I was put under General Hux. The _Dreadnought_ was Admiral Mikoto’s project.”

A murmur went around the table. Finn felt less than useless.

“We have no idea what we’re up against,” General Organa said, “but the First Order cannot be allowed to annex systems at will, nor can they be allowed to capture Luke and Rey.”

Admiral Statura distributed orders. Finn patiently waited, even as General Organa approached him and Poe.

“Poe,” she said, “are you ready to fly again?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Poe said, snapping into a smart salute.

“Good. Suit up, Black Leader.”

Poe gave Finn’s hand one last squeeze and then he was off.

“Finn,” General Organa said. Finn waited for a directive. Was he going to be a gunner? Infantry, in the event that the battle went to one of the planets? “You’re with me.”

“Wait,” Finn said. General Organa had already started to walk away, giving specialized orders to others. “Wait, ma’am—” But she paid him no attention. Finn shouldn’t have expected it; orders were orders, no matter where they came from.

He stood, and waited, and tried not to feel cold.

* * *

Finn wasn’t sure how long it took for General Organa to call him back over. He could see a battle starting on the holoprojector. There were trackers for each ship, with a receiver and transmitter outfitted to one of the larger battleships. The technology was far older than the First Order was working with—General Organa had explained to him, during one of their early conversations, how the demilitarization of the New Republic had made it difficult to acquire state-of-the-art military tech from anywhere other than First Order suppliers. Still, it made Finn antsy. Was this really all they had?

“Finn,” General Organa said. “A word.”

He obeyed, walking to stand by her side at the holotable.

“I know you want to be part of the action,” General Organa said, “but until we know you’re fully recovered, I can’t send you out.”

“Recov—...with all due respect, ma’am, I was released from the medbay,” Finn said, surprising even himself with his outburst. “Poe’s not fully _anything_ and you sent him out.”

“ _Poe_ is not Force-sensitive,” General Organa said. “Those looking—the Dark Side—will have sensed your awakening in the Force, if they didn’t earlier. Until Luke trains you, we have to keep you safe.”

Finn felt his blood freeze. “Kylo Ren’s out there,” he said, “on one of those ships.”

General Organa hesitated. “Yes,” she said.

“All the more reason I should be _out there_ ,” Finn said. “Poe’s risking everything. Luke Skywalker and Rey could be there too—they’re just as in danger as everyone else!”

“Luke can handle himself,” General Organa snapped, “and Rey is a Jedi, as you will be some day.” She fixed Finn with a glare and turned back to the holotable. “If all goes well today, Poe will take you to study with Rey under Luke.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Finn asked, speaking slowly.

General Organa’s expression was unreadable. “Luke will survive,” she said. “He always has.”

Finn hadn’t been asking about Luke, but he didn’t have the courage to rephrase the question.

 _Poe, if you can feel this_ , Finn thought, concentrating all of his feelings, _I need you to survive. Come back. Come back_.

* * *

The ship that Finn had called the _Dreadnought_ was even more massive in person than it had been on the holotable. As a matter of fact, Poe thought that their calculations as to its size must have been off. An army thirteen times the size of the Resistance could have fit in there. More X-wings than Poe could _count_ could have fit in there. Poe could have crashed into it headlong and not made so much of a dent in it.

Somewhere in there was the elusive Admiral of the First Order. From what Finn had told General Organa, the First Order was commanded by some shadowy figure named Snoke, who served as their Supreme Leader. Under him were three: Kylo Ren, General Hux, and Admiral Mikoto. It was the first the Resistance had heard of the Admiral; they’d thought for the longest time that the First Order had done away with naval ranks altogether. After all, General Hux had been aboard the _Finalizer_ when Poe had been taken in. Poe had seen him, stiff and reprehensible, and had hated him on the spot.

Now was not the time to wonder about the First Order command structure, however. Poe had three TIE fighters riding close behind him, missiles locked and firing at will. He ducked and dived, but the Neerdia didn’t have much in the way of natural cover in the space around it—no asteroids, nowhere to hide.

“I see you, Black Leader,” Jess came over the lines.

“Blue Three, get them off of me, I can’t shake them,” Poe called. BB-8 flashed warning after warning on his command screen. Poe swerved and looped, and still the TIE fighters pressed on.

Across the lines, it sounded as if everyone else was in a similar position. Red Leader and Red Four were going in on a _Maxima_ - _A_ cruiser, while most of the Blue squadron had focused fire on an _Imperial_ class Star Destroyer.

No one could even get _close_ to the _Dreadnought_. It had some sort of strong electric field around it. Every time Poe came near, he was repelled as if the ship had physically pushed him away. He swung wide of the behemoth of a ship, praying it didn’t have offensive capabilities and waiting for Jess to get the TIE fighters off his tail.

One of the TIE fighters behind Poe exploded and careened to one side, bouncing off of the _Dreadnought_ ’s shield.

“Good shot Blue Three!” Poe roared. He whipped up, hoping to get a line of sight on one of the remaining two fighters. Shots from one of the five Star Destroyers had him veering off.

“We’re outnumbered, Black Leader, and badly outgunned!” This, from Blue Leader. “No sign of Skywalker. We can’t win!”

“Keep fighting!” Poe said. “We can do this, we can—”

A warning from BB-8 popped up, and not a moment too soon: the _Dreadnought_ had something trained on him. BB-8 had no idea what it was, and Poe had no desire to find out. He cursed as he swung the controls to one side.

A beam—no, those were multiple shots, rapid-fire, faster than anything Poe had ever seen—nearly took off one of his wings.

Poe cursed loudly and swung blindly. The bolts were bright and moved fast. All across the lines, pilots were shouting—the First Order had some sort of hyperblasters. Blue Two and Red Four were down. Poe took fire at one of the Star Destroyers to buy himself some time to think. They were outnumbered, and badly outgunned. If Skywalker hadn’t gotten away by now… The Resistance couldn’t afford to buy much more in the way of time.

Something caught Poe’s gaze—there leaving the atmosphere of Neerdia.

Poe cursed. “Reinforcements,” he called. “The First Order has reinforcements!” It was anathema to everything he stood for, but… “Pull back,” he ordered. “Fall back, scatter and get back to base!”

* * *

The aftermath of the skirmish at Neerdia was catastrophic.

Poe had been lucky to escape the _Dreadnought_ , but others hadn’t been so lucky. Six X-wings were down. Good pilots, gone.

Finn felt Poe’s sorrow before he even landed. He waited for Poe, on the tarmac, and when he hopped out of the cockpit, sticky with sweat and numb, Finn stood and waited, unsure of what to do.

Poe walked up to him and laid his head on his shoulder. Finn wrapped his arms around him, holding him close.

“I’ll have to debrief,” Poe said.

“I know,” Finn said. “But you don’t have to do that right now.”

“We never had a prayer.”

“You survived,” he said. “You came back.”

Poe’s grip on him tightened. “I heard his voice,” he said, “on the way back. I hadn’t—I hadn’t heard it in a long time. I thought I was better. I nearly didn’t make it.”

“Who’s voice?” Finn asked.

“Kylo Ren’s,” Poe said. “It won’t leave me _alone_ —”

Finn pulled Poe closer. “I won’t let him,” Finn said. “He can’t hurt you. We’ll take down the First Order. Poe.” Poe looked up at Finn. He was a right wreck. “You’ve got a Jedi on your side,” Finn said. “Next time you go up, I’m coming with you.”

* * *

“Absolutely not.”

General Organa was livid. Finn stood before her, arms behind his back, sweating. Poe stood to one side, clearly torn between bolting or taking a stance. Finn couldn’t guess which position he’d take.

“Ma’am,” Finn said, “I won’t go.”

“Finn, you have _potential_ ,” she said. “You can become something great—”

“And I will,” Finn said. “That’s why I refuse to study under Luke.”

“We risked everything,” she said, a pointed look at Poe, “ _everything_ to try to bring Luke back.”

“Not for me,” Finn said. Talking back to authority felt very wrong and _very_ right. “Rey may study under him, but I think there’s another way.”

General Organa’s glare could have leveled another man, but Finn had stood up to Phasma. He’d lost those old fears.

“Enlighten me,” she said.

Finn took a deep breath. _All or nothing_ , he thought.

“You’re Luke Skywalker’s sister,” Finn said, starting with a fact. “You feel the Force. I want to study under you.”

For a long moment, General Organa didn’t say anything.

“Me,” she said finally. “You think I can make you a Jedi.”

Finn couldn’t stand any straighter, but he tried anyway. “You can teach me how to use the Force,” he said. “You can show me how to use diplomacy, how to lead.”

“You want to stay here,” General Organa said, looking once more at Poe.

“I want to help the Resistance,” Finn said. “I want to take down the First Order, and I can’t do that if I’m off in the middle of nowhere away from the people I care about. I’ve got a blaster and the Force, if you’ll teach me how to use it, and that’s all I need.”

General Organa took a deep breath, let it out. Finn could feel something from her—just a tendril, but it was a start. Even before she spoke, he knew that she’d accepted him— _as an apprentice_ , Finn thought, giddy.

“We better teach you to fly, then,” she said finally.

* * *

General Organa wasted no time with Finn. No matter what he’d said, she knew he was going to need far more than a blaster and the backing of the Force. She had Temmin—not Poe; the risk of distraction was too high, and Poe would have just used the opportunity to show off to his obviously starstruck boyfriend—teach Finn to fly. Temmin got him started on an A-wing before they moved to an X-wing. Finn struggled in the beginning, and he would never be a fantastic pilot—he’d never hold a candle to Poe, or to Han, rest his soul—but he could fly if push came to shove, and that was all General Organa cared about.

After that, General Organa got Finn started on strategy, something he picked up much faster. She showed him classic manuevers for fanning out fighters in different configurations and scenarios, how to conduct guerrilla attacks without casualties. They ran simulations against each other, General Organa against Finn in mock battles. She easily won the first few, but after pointing out the mistakes that he’d made, she found that he was winning more and more.

“Good,” General Organa told him. He never failed to brighten. She wondered how much praise he’d been given as a stormtrooper, if any. “You’re doing well.”

She could sense his doubts—not necessarily in his strategic abilities, which he had a preternatural gift for, but in the training itself. In truth, she’d picked her curriculum to dissuade him from studying under her. He would turn to Luke, eager to get “real” training, and that would be that.

Finn hadn’t voiced his doubts, though. He’d pressed on, eager to do more, every day fulfilling the tasks she set before him.

(She remembered something Luke had said once, when he’d first started his school.

“You know when you connect with a student,” he’d said, eyes bright, speaking of one of his pupils. “When you know that you have to train them. Master Yoda tried to explain it to me once, how the Force puts together Jedi and their padawans. I didn’t believe it until now.”

She remembered, too, that Luke hadn’t been talking about her Ben.)

As a reward for Finn’s diligence, while Poe was off on a run to try to find information about the _Dreadnought_ —they thought they’d located an arms supplier on Berai who’d contributed to the endeavor—General Organa got out the kyber crystals.

She’d had two set aside, when they’d been harvested. One for Rey, who still hadn’t been able to come get it, and another for Finn, just in case. Now, she presented it to him.

“I meant to give these to you together,” General Organa said, holding the wrapped crystal close. They sat on the roof, as had become their custom. Finn followed her everywhere so that he could observe how she and the rest of the Resistance worked, attending strategic meetings to debriefs, but whenever she had a hole in her schedule, they came to the roof to be alone.

“What is it?” Finn asked, eyeing the package. He wasn’t nervous, but he was wary. General Organa approved.

“It’s a kyber crystal,” she said, “used to craft a lightsaber.”

“You want me to build a lightsaber?” Finn asked, incredulous.

“I built my first one after Endor,” General Organa said. “It’s a very personal process, but I’ve brought these to get you started.” She had a bag of parts, and she placed them before her. Finn looked at the heap with wonder. “The casing technology is about the same for a lightsaber as a blaster. Containing and directing the energy without it backfiring is roughly the same. The crystal is the biggest difference.”

General Organa handed Finn the wrapped crystal. He unwrapped it carefully, staring at the shining clear crystal.

“Touch it,” she said. Finn looked up at her. “When kyber crystals are harvested, they’re clear, like that one there. Depending on the nature of the one holding it, it adopts a color. The Sith tended to receive red crystals, while most Jedi had green and blue. Let’s see what yours does.”

Finn took the crystal in one hand. It grew warm almost immediately, flashing, and he nearly dropped it.

“Oh,” Finn said.

General Organa smiled. “I thought so much,” she said.

In Finn’s hand was a vibrantly purple crystal. The light inside seemed to twinkle even as it swirled and churned, like some sort of spinning galaxy.

 _Joy_ radiated across their bond as Finn slowly grinned and looked up at her. Even if Luke had shown up to demand to teach Finn immediately, General Organa couldn’t have handed him over. Not now.

* * *

Finn’s training and Poe’s missions meant that they didn’t see each other nearly so much.

Poe wanted to say that it didn’t bother him. He really, really did.

(It bothered him a lot.)

Poe saw him in debriefs, which was something, but they didn’t have time to talk then. The only free time they shared were those rare nights when Poe was on base. Then, and only then, could they be together.

 _Together_ was a pretty word for a rather awkward situation. It became clear the first time they saw each other following Finn’s dramatic proclamation that he wouldn’t leave the base to train with Skywalker: they talked like two strangers, looking at each other and looking away, hardly aware of what to do.

By the time Poe returned from Berai with a little more information about those electric fields that had given them such a hard time, he’d decided to do something about it.

It was a chilly night. The bugs were quiet and so was the base. Even with Poe’s intel, they were lightyears away from getting the upper hand on the new ship the First Order seemed to be flaunting. Unlike Starkiller, they didn’t look to be going for secrecy. Then again, with the death of Hosnia, there wasn’t much to hide from.

Poe debriefed right away. There wasn’t much—just a few details—but the engineers seemed excited, so that was something. Poe swallowed, then piped up.

“And, General Organa, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yes, Poe?”

“I’d like a word with Finn, whenever he’s free,” he said. “In private.”

Poe could have sworn that General Organa actually smiled, but the look was fleeting.

“I’m done with him for the evening,” she said. She turned to Finn. “You’re free to go. We’re going over the flanking maneuvers tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

Finn nodded and came to Poe’s side. Poe led him out. He’d wanted to go outside, but it was getting dark and he wanted to see Finn’s face. That didn’t leave many places.

“I’ve wanted to talk to you,” Poe said, “about us.”

“Me too,” Finn said quietly. Poe realized that they weren’t holding hands—he’d gotten used to the feel of Finn’s hand in his, even when they stared awkwardly ahead and said nothing and did nothing else. The lack of it made him uneasy.

Poe took him to his own room for lack of a better option. The lighting was abysmal—all harsh white and no softness—and it was cramped and messy, but he didn’t have another idea.

Finn perched on the edge of his bed, looking as uncomfortable as he had when Poe had first gotten him clothes.

“So,” Poe said. Finn swallowed. “Do you want to, or should I?”

Finn nodded at him. Poe guessed that meant that he had to start.

“I just want to say,” Poe said, “that if I’ve pressured you into a relationship—”

Finn’s eyes went wide as saucers as he said, “No, no.” Poe stopped, mouth open.

“You didn’t,” Finn said, “pressure me. I…” He looked to one side. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Never done what?” Poe asked. When he received no response he asked, “Finn?”

“I’ve never had _this_ ,” Finn said. “I’ve never had someone who wants to see me—who _goes out of his way_ to see me. You look at me like I’m something special and I know I’m not and—”

“Oh, Finn,” Poe said, coming to sit next to him. “I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have—I should have known.”

“There was no way to,” Finn said. “You told me to tell you if we were going too fast, but I wasn’t sure what you meant and I thought that if I said something you might…”

Poe didn’t want to know what Finn thought he might do, so he said, “Finn, whatever it is you want, I want to give that to you.”

Finn looked at him, uncertain.

“I mean that,” Poe said. “I mean, there are things I can’t do—I can’t stop flying, and I can’t give up the Resistance, but you…Finn, I told you that I loved you, and I meant it. I still do, and I’ll continue to mean it. Whatever you need. You want us to slow down? We’ll slow down. Speed up, zigzag?”

Finn laughed, and Poe thought he was on the right track.

“I think,” Finn said, “I need a kiss.”

Poe smiled. “You know, you read my mind.”

“I _am_ your Jedi.”

Poe felt the air leave his chest in the best of ways. “ _My_ Jedi?” he asked, half-teasing.

“In every way.”

“And I’m your pilot,” Poe said, “in every way.”

Finn pulled Poe in for a firm kiss, his fingers tangling in Poe’s hair as they fell against each other, laughing and content and so very much in love.


End file.
